Tag Man

by Archer Mayor

  His first impulse was to do more research. Given his fondness for studying other people’s lives, what more tempting subject—mysterious, horrifying, perhaps even threatening—than Paul Hauser?

  Also, Hauser posed an unexpected problem. For the same reasons that he proved interesting, he’d also become a hurdle. Just as Dan could not leave any mess untended—if only tidying it up in the smallest way—so did the specter of Paul Hauser represent a show-stopping example of disorder: Dan couldn’t continue as the Tag Man until straightening this out. Last, digging into and exposing Paul Hauser stood to be truly worthy. Dan didn’t know the significance of the pictures he’d seen, but he doubted that they were staged. And if he was right, and could identify them and link them to Hauser somehow, would that not be the ultimate justification for Dan’s own behavior?

  * * *

  Joe was sitting in his wood shop at home—midweek, midafternoon—an alien situation for him. This room, tacked onto the back of his small house, was filled with the enormous, ancient, cast iron woodworking tools his late father had used to help keep the family farm running, and routinely served as Joe’s sanity restorer—where he went ostensibly to make things like birdhouses and small boxes, but in fact to repair himself by proxy.

  However, that was usually after hours, and he hadn’t actually touched a tool, anyhow. He was just sitting there, staring into space, when the phone rang.

  Out of habit, he’d brought the cordless phone in and laid it on the bench beside him—perpetually aware of how dependent so many people had become on having him within reach.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey,” said Gail.

  Joe smiled sadly at the phone. “Hey yourself, Governor. So bored already that you’re calling old pals?”

  She laughed outright into his ear. “Holy shit, Joe. If I’d only known, I never would have run for this job.”

  He doubted that. Much as he loved this woman—if now only as a best friend—he’d never been blind to her unbridled ambition. As lofty as being governor sounded to most, Gail was most likely already pondering something higher up the food chain—a few months into her first term.

  “They running you ragged?”

  “What did you used to say?” she asked. “It’s like being nibbled to death by ducks?”

  He smiled at the phone. “Yeah, according to George Bernard Shaw, I think.”

  “Well, it’s nonstop,” she said. “From people telling me I suck as a governor and have a lousy fashion sense, to toadies blowing me kisses, I’m feeling like a human piñata. Christ only knows what half of them are really after. I doubt if they do after all the posturing.”

  “I bet,” Joe said politely.

  She then asked, “How’re you doing? I’m worried about you.”

  “You got enough on your mind. I’m fine.”

  “Right. You back at work yet? Must not be if I caught you at home.”

  “No,” he conceded. “Still working out a few kinks. Seeing a shrink.”

  “Good,” she said enthusiastically, as he knew she would. She was younger, more liberal, and more urbane than he. For her, psychologists had the same standing as pharmacists had for his generation—neighborhood experts you consulted almost casually about the most intimate of details.

  “How’s that working for you?” she asked.

  “It takes time,” he answered carefully.

  “Don’t I know it,” she said sympathetically, the rape she’d suffered years earlier suddenly rearing up. He was embarrassed that by comparison, his burden seemed a triviality—a broken heart, inevitably to be healed by time.

  To give her credit, she sensed this in his silence. “It’s a real loss, Joe. Like losing a limb. A part of you died with her. Once again,” she added, alluding to his earlier loss of his wife, Ellen.

  “Yeah,” he acknowledged. “I’m thinking I’ll give all that a bit of a rest.”

  “The job or relationships?” she asked like the lawyer she was.

  He hesitated.

  “Joe?” she pushed.

  “I’m working on that.”

  “Work on the relationship angle if you want. There’s no rush there. But you need to get back to work. I know you, Joe. Does the unit have anything interesting going?”

  “This and that,” he said vaguely. “I just needed a breather, Gail.”

  He heard some voices in the background at her end of the phone. “You better go,” he counseled. “You don’t want to miss out on another tongue-lashing.”

  She ignored the humorous out. “I do have to go. I’m sorry. I’ll call again. But listen to what I’m saying, Joe. I love you. I always will. You need to get busy. Have you seen your mother?” she asked suddenly.

  Joe’s mother lived in their old house in Thetford, with his brother, who helped care for her, about halfway up the Connecticut River Valley toward Canada.

  “Oh, sure. A few times. She sends her love. Solid as a brick.”

  “No offense, but I wasn’t asking after her health. She tells you the truth, and I bet she’s saying the same thing I just did.”

  He could tell she was shifting back into executive role.

  “You’re not wrong,” he told her, about to hang up the phone. “You know your players. Good luck out there.”

  * * *

  Ron Klesczewski sat back in his office chair and studied his computer screen. He had spent the last few hours researching Lloyd Jordan—first through local records and files, identifying when he’d moved into the area, how much he paid in property taxes, and how diligent he’d been in meeting his obligations. He’d then expanded his scope to Vermont’s criminal and civil databases. From there, it had been on to the famed NCIC—the National Crime Information Center—and last, he’d consulted the mother ship, Google, where, no surprise, he’d found the most ore to mine.

  Lloyd Jordan, it appeared, had no criminal record beyond a couple of speeding tickets, but he had generated a lot of chatter among the Boston media and bloggers.

  “You look like a bird dog hot on the trail.”

  Ron twisted in his seat, already smiling at the familiar voice. He rose quickly and shook hands with his old boss and mentor.

  “Joe,” he said, moving a chair invitingly. “Take a load off. My God, it’s good to see you. How’re you doing?”

  Joe Gunther settled down and dismissed the question with a wave. “Hanging in there. The family hale and hearty?”

  “Terrific. My boy is getting top marks at school and knocking them dead on the ball field, and his mother has just gotten her realtor’s license and is pounding the pavement as we speak.”

  Joe smiled. “Jeez. Moving right along. I remember when that kid was just a bump in his mom’s belly.”

  Ron laughed, wondering when he’d last seen Joe in these offices, or with enough time on his hands to simply drop by.

  “You want some coffee?” he asked, using it as a filler as he considered what to say next. Small talk had never been his strength.

  “No,” Joe told him. “People are offering me more coffee than I can handle—won’t sleep for a week.”

  Ron started there. “Doing a lot of visiting?”

  Joe smiled, but his eyes were watchful. “Like dropping in on people who’re trying to work?”

  Ron flushed slightly. “Oh, hey. That’s not what I meant—”

  Joe interrupted him. “Not to worry, Ron. It doesn’t matter. Regardless of what you meant, I am rattling around a bit. I can’t get my feet back under me. I’m not used to that.”

  “Lyn?” Ron asked leadingly.

  Joe didn’t argue the point. “I miss her. I’m even seeing a shrink.” Repeating the words he’d used earlier with Gail didn’t make them sound any better. He disliked the idea of psychotherapy, even while he was grateful that it was available. He added, as if to prove something to himself, “It’s more than that. Something deeper, I guess. Could be an age thing, or just burnout. I don’t know…” His voice trailed off.

  Ron looked at
him, nonplussed, before Joe saved him from further embarrassment by pointing at the screen. “You working on anything interesting?”

  Ron gratefully twisted the computer screen toward his guest. “The Tag Man struck again, and I decided to look more carefully at his latest victim. Willy steered me that way. Might have potential.”

  Joe leaned forward to see better. “Lloyd Jordan? Never heard of him.”

  “He’s a flatlander from Boston,” Ron informed him. “Rolling in dough and arrogant as hell. The minute I met him, I thought he was hiding something. He and his wife are recent arrivals, looking like quite the local fund-raisers and do-gooders—or at least she does; I doubt he gives a shit—but it turns out he may have been up to his neck in the mob in the old days.”

  “No kidding?”

  “Nothing he was ever caught at,” Ron continued. “But the chatter’s convinced he was dirty.”

  Joe’s expression had revived to something more reminiscent of the Joe Gunther Ron knew well.

  “The question to ask,” Joe suggested, “is how this has anything to do with the Tag Man’s visit. Or if it does.”

  “That’s what Willy was thinking,” Ron agreed. “What if the Tag Man isn’t as harmless as he looks?”

  Joe sounded like Tony Brandt. “Meaning he’s targeting these houses because their owners won’t report what he’s really stealing … That’s interesting.”

  Ron was heartened by the other man’s enthusiasm. “I’d like to hand this one off, to be honest. Could get complicated, if any of this is true, and I don’t have the time, the budget, or the manpower, especially now that the detective squad’s been reduced to just me and Tyler. This is the thinnest we’ve been since before your time.”

  Joe knew of his troubles—the board of selectmen had been cutting back on everyone’s funding like never before. Still, he chose to avoid that discussion and stick to the topic at hand. “Beware what you wish for, Ron,” he cautioned. “Think of what we just hypothesized: If the Tag Man has that kind of intelligence going for him, and you’re right about Jordan being mobbed up, we’ll be talking major crimes before you know it. And you haven’t even looked into the other victims, right?”

  “No,” Ron conceded. “Up to now, we just saw them as targets, not as people who had something to hide. This conversation’s introduced a whole new ball game.”

  Joe held up a cautionary finger. “Maybe, maybe not. Don’t forget that all we know for sure is that he leaves a Post-it at every scene. The rest is purely hypothetical.”

  “Speaking of which,” Ron added, “the chief thinks blackmail might be an angle, too.”

  Joe laughed. “That would add an extra layer.”

  “If true, though,” Ron ruminated, “I can’t say I’d mind seeing Jordan twist in the wind for a while. For all we know, the Tag Man could be doing us a favor.” He considered what Tony Brandt and he had discussed along similar lines. “Maybe he’s a masked avenger or something.”

  “You really don’t like Mr. Jordan, do you?”

  Ron thought back to his encounter not with Lloyd but his wife, whom he truly didn’t envy.

  “You’re right,” he agreed. “I don’t. I’d love to bring him down a few pegs. The man’s a jerk.”

  Joe stood up and moved to the door, checking his watch. “Ron,” he said on the threshold, Gail’s advice still echoing in his head. “I know this may be out of line, but if you need any help—off the books—don’t hesitate to ask. I’m officially on medical leave, or vacation, or whatever the hell, but I’m thinking it wouldn’t hurt to sink my teeth into something.”

  Ron rose and shook his hand. “You working for me? You think I’ll turn that down? You got a deal.”

  Joe patted his younger colleague’s shoulder. “You may be singing a different tune a week from now, when you find out what a crazy old bastard I’ve turned into.”

  Ron opened his mouth to soften the comment, but then decided to pay the man his due. After all, he thought, I have no idea what he’s going through—or what it’s costing him.

  “Let me worry about that, okay?” he said instead. “We’ll just start and see where it leads.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Was Joe here?”

  Willy Kunkle looked up at Sammie’s voice. She was standing in the VBI doorway with Emma in her arms. He glanced over at Lester Spinney, who was working at his desk, before answering neutrally, “Nope. Why?”

  Lester swiveled in his seat. “Hey, Sam. How’s the little monster?”

  “Hi, Les. Still not sleeping through the night.”

  “You gotta give ’em time. It’s not like cats and kitty litter.”

  “Cute,” Willy groused. “What about Joe?”

  “I saw him going into the detective bureau downstairs, so I figured he’d been here.”

  “Lester,” Willy said gruffly, “why don’t you check that out—invite him up for a cup or something?”

  Lester’s mouth fell half open before he grasped the subtext and rose quickly to his feet. “Sure. Be back in a few.”

  He slipped by Sam, giving Emma’s thin blond hair a quick stroke as he passed. “Hi there, sweetie.”

  Willy waited for his footsteps to fade before he, too, got up and approached Sam. He kissed his child murmuring, “How’re you doing, little daughter?”

  Sammie smiled while shaking her head. “You couldn’t do that with Lester in the room?”

  Willy was sniffing Emma’s hair as if it was a cure for melancholy, which it undoubtedly was. “Don’t give me crap,” he barely whispered. “I got an image.”

  “Which applies to your street-bum friends,” she countered.

  Willy straightened and tousled her hair, which she couldn’t protect with her arms full. “Half of them are your snitches, too,” he reminded her. “What’re you doin’ here? Getting restless?”

  “A little,” she admitted candidly. “I’m not bucking to speed things up, but I am getting curious about how things’ll work out when I come back to work.”

  He looked at her carefully. “What’s that mean?”

  She shrugged and Emma stirred. “I don’t know. I used to pull twenty-four-hour shifts when the shit hit the fan. Now I’ve got something bigger to think about.”

  She had thought he would react as he’d trained everyone to expect. Instead, he made a dismissive face and said, “We’ll figure that out. You’re not alone, you know?”

  A slow smile creased her face as he retreated to his desk in the office’s windowless corner. “I do know, Willy. Thanks.”

  They heard footsteps coming down the hallway, announcing Lester’s return, complete with company. When he entered, however, it wasn’t Joe but Ron who stopped in the doorway, as Lester continued in and immediately asked Sam if he could hold the baby. She handed Emma over willingly. Lester had two of his own, older teenagers by now, and made no apologies for considering himself a dad first and foremost. Several years ago, he had even risked jail time when his son had gotten into a legal bind. Typically, Joe had helped him get out of it.

  Lester crossed to his office chair and gently sat down, cradling Emma in his lap. His focus on her excluded everyone else, allowing Sam to give Ron a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

  “Hey, stranger. You don’t write, you don’t call…”

  “Thank God,” Willy cracked.

  Ron laughed. “It’s not like you guys don’t walk by my office every day, coming and going.”

  “Good point,” Sam conceded.

  “It’s called moving on, Ron,” Willy commented. “We spent enough years in that hole.”

  Ron didn’t take offense, taking in the VBI’s spartan furnishings. “Right. You guys really moved up.”

  It was true that the VBI, for all its elitist cachet, had never had the funding to match the image. A typically political animal, created by a past governor, reluctantly supported by successive legislatures, and staffed by often quirky and self-motivated defectors from a dozen other agencies, the Bureau had become
the law enforcement community’s bastard brother—inside the fold, but awkwardly isolated.

  “Tell them what you told me,” Lester said, not looking up because he was touching Emma’s forehead with his nose.

  “You’re pregnant,” Willy prompted.

  They all ignored him.

  “Joe’s working for me, unofficially,” Ron said.

  Even Kunkle was impressed. “You’re kidding me. On what?”

  “The Tag Man case,” Ron explained. “He walked in a while ago—I thought just to be sociable. He’s kind of at loose ends. On his way out, he volunteered to pitch in.”

  There was a moment’s silence, during which Willy said under his breath, “The old man’s really losing it.”

  “He is not,” Sammie reacted, flushing slightly.

  This time, Lester did look up. “I think it’s the reverse—he wants to get his feet wet again.”

  No one responded, each momentarily lost in his or her thoughts about what the “boss” might be up to—and how he’d fare in the process.

  * * *

  Leo Metelica favored a .45 caliber model 1911 semiautomatic. It looked like the one seen in all the World War II movies—big, heavy, black, and ominous—but he’d actually made it himself—in a fashion—assembling it from the best components available, custom fitting them in his kitchen-based workshop. It was beautiful to handle, a perfect fit to his hand with its checkered walnut grips, and a hair trigger and night sights that had set him back a chunk of change.

  All to good effect, though. Merely poking the thing into a man’s face was usually enough to wrap up whatever argument Leo was making.

  He practiced with it endlessly, at the range and in the woods, training himself in a variety of environments, and he stripped it, cleaned it, and reassembled it incessantly. It was the primary tool of his trade, of course, but in moments of self-contemplation, Leo saw himself physically as a part of the gun, and the gun as a reflection of him.

  This was a good thing in his eyes. The gun, or the conviction behind it, was what kept Leo employed, and it was the gun that got people to act—keep their mouths shut, pay what they owed, or, on rare occasions, to stop breathing. Leo hadn’t actually killed too many people—real life wasn’t like fiction, after all, where Sylvester Stallone or Bruce Willis could kill twenty people before strolling away. But he’d used this same gun on three men so far, and it had worked to perfection every time. Quietly, too, because of the silencer he’d also built in his basement. Leo was a handy man, well trained by the navy and by working for his uncle as a kid in a welding shop. Not a great thinker, perhaps—something he’d been told time and again by his betters—but good with tools, and good at getting back at those betters when they least expected it.