JG02 - Borderlines

by Archer Mayor

  “The local who pulled the alarm outside the firehouse said he woke hearing shouts in the street, looked out his window, and saw people ning around the house. Said it didn’t look like they were doing much d, and he hadn’t heard the siren yet, so he ran off to sound the alarm self.”

  “Did he recognize any of the people in the street?” Hamilton ed.

  “Nope. Says they all look the same to him and it was too far away way. His house is pretty far off.” “How involved was the house when he stuck his head out the dow?” “He said he saw flames downstairs; he’s a little vague about upirs.

  Says he might have seen a flickering.” Apple opened a file he’d been holding in his lap. “I got the autopback from Hillstrom. The four upstairs died of smoke inhalation.

  e guy downstairs-Fox is a different matter.” He nodded in May’s direction. “Dick’s gut is right on the money: Whatever the y died of, it sure as hell wasn’t smoke. Hillstrom says she has no ubts he was dead before he hit the stove. The fire did a pretty good on him; so did moving him from the house to Burlington, for that tter. His neck was pretty well burned through; lot of bone breakage e to heat-” “Any guesses what killed him?” Hamilton interrupted. “She can’t say for sure; she’s mostly ruling stuff out, like no bullet le, no depressed fractures, no poison in the system, no bloody knife found nearby, etc…. She did find something interesting, though-a feather in the neck.” Hamilton’s brow furrowed. “Where in the neck. I thought you said it was burned through?” Apple closed the file with a small slap.

  “Well, that’s what makes it iffy. I mean, we’re talking about a piece of meat that’s been cooked right down to charcoal almost. There’s a photo in here, but you can’t tell squat from it, so I drove over to see it all for myself. What she’s got is all burned and microscopic, but she swears it’s the remnants of a feather. What she can’t swear to is whether it was on the guy when he burned, or in him.” “Like swallowed by him?” LeMay asked.

  “Swallowed, inhaled… You know as much as I do. Maybe the guy ate raw, unplucked chickens or something. I hear they’re pretty strange.” LeMay spoke up. “We found a feather on the landing upstairs.”

  There was a pause. Nobody apparently could make much of that.

  The mention of the landing, however, made me think of the four other victims. “Dick, you said the fire smoldered for quite a while before it finally took off, but Rennie and I found the four victims upstairs all huddled together on one bed. Why didn’t they open the window if they smelled smoke? Why didn’t they shove a blanket under the door?” I hadn’t meant to put Dick LeMay on the spot. He shrugged and looked over to Appleby, who shook his head. “Beats me.” “Maybe they were all huddled on that bed for some other reason.

  When we first went in, and I saw them under the blanket, I thought it was there to block off the smoke. But I’ve been thinking-the blanket was around them, not over their heads. They were all crunched up like they were afraid of something.” Apple frowned thoughtfully. “You’re saying they were frightened by something before the fire even started, something that may have distracted them from smelling the smoke before it was too late.” “Right,” I said. “Like when kids get scared of lightning in the middle of the night, or they hear something creaking outside. They get together; they huddle up. Maybe the woman was playing along, lending them comfort; or maybe she was scared, too.”

  “Wouldn’t the smoke have stunk the place up?” Potter asked, as if pained by the possibility this might all be more than a simple accident.

  LeMay answered him. “The stove was a cob job-held together with baling wire, literally. It must have stunk all the time-they were bably used to it; if all of a sudden there was more smoke, and if they e seriously distracted like Joe thinks, they might not have noticed it was too late. Besides, depending on what’s burning, the gases can you before the smoke is even noticeable.” Hamilton nodded from his perch on the desk-the benevolent derator.

  “It’s purely speculative, but we should keep it in mind. at about the hose line that went flat? I gather that turned out to be hing.” His last sentence stunned me. I’d heard with everyone else that the had been drained from the portable pump that had supplied water the river to the tanker, and thereby to Rennie and me, but that dly sounded like nothing. On the contrary, it had struck me as a cidence too great to ignore.

  Apple nodded. “Apparently Buster Chartier got a little tense at time, but it turns out it was human error. One of his people forgot efill the oil pan after he serviced the pump last time.” “Definitely accidental?” Hamilton pushed.

  “Anything’s possible, but in my book, the guy screwed up. He did job last month there was a bill for the oil. Another guy helped him ing the initial breakdown and cleaning of the pump, but had to leave ause it was getting late and he had to go home for dinner. I found oil, unopened, and the guy thinks that in the rush-now that he was alone and late for dinner himself-he just forgot to put the damn if in.” I thought back to Buster’s odd behavior following the fire. Now made more sense. He held himself accountable for risking my life ause he hadn’t checked the pump. His anger at Rennie had been pounded by his own guilt. I now regretted not bringing the subject at the time.

  My mixed feelings were not unique. There was a perceptible sense isappointment in the room. Had the pump been sabotaged, as most had thought, then premeditation and possibly conspiracy became ts of the recipe. That meant a more organized, complicated scheme, which in turn meant more potential rocks lying around for us to look er. Apple’s report put an end to all that, and introduced the possity that the pump wasn’t the only thing that merely looked suspius. Like bloodhounds suffering cabin fever, none of us looked ward to being told the hunt was off.

  As if to stem that very possibility, Apple almost cheerfully turned nother sheet in his folder. “I got the report back from the crime lab the shell casing found in the house. It is 9 mm, like we thought, from automatic, but they can’t say what kind, nor can they say how long ago the bullet was fired. But,” here he held up his hand theatrically, “it does have a nice clear, single print on it.” “Belonging to…?” I asked.

  “Unknown. Hey, you can’t have it all.” Hamilton looked a little irritated. “They couldn’t match the casing to anything in their files?”

  “Nope.” Hamilton checked a sheet of paper lying beside him, presumably an agenda. “What about the identities of the deceased?” “Ah. There, Sarris is being more helpful, but that’s Mike’s territory.” We all looked at Mike Churchill, who hadn’t said a word so far, no surprise with a partner as voluble as Apple. He cleared his throat.

  “Yes. We-I mean, I-showed him photographs and he identified everyone including the burned guy. I pushed him a little there, since the guy’s such a mess, and at first he seemed to hesitate a little. But then he said definitely there was no doubt the burned guy was Fox. His real name was Ed Sylvester, by the way. Sarris said he’d known him for years; he’d been one of his trusted advisors and one of the original members of the Order. Plus, he said, Fox-or Sylvester hadn’t turned up, and the burned house was where he’d lived. Gave me addresses of next of kin for everybody, too. I’m still working on it, but so far, they’re checking out. It’ll take a few days for it all to get back to us.” “Did he get those from a file or something?” “What?” Churchill seemed startled at a question from me. “The names and addresses.” “Oh. Yes. A filing cabinet.” “He keeps pretty substantial records, I think,”

  Hamilton clarified.

  “About six months ago, they had an accidental death over there a small child fell off a bridge into a dry stream bed. Sarris gave us all the information we needed.” “Were you able to look into his files?” “No. He wasn’t that cooperative, but what he gave us checked out.” Hamilton smiled ruefully. “I can’t deny I would have liked a look, but he made it clear we’d have to get a warrant, and we had no grounds.” “How old a child was it?” I asked, my curiosity piqued. Hamilton paused a moment, thinking. “He was a little guy-h
ad just learned to walk-fourteen months comes to mind, but I’d have to check the case file.” “And he was walking across a bridge?” The other man’s brow furrowed at my persistence. “He wasn’t e.

  There was a group of them, supervised by a couple of adults. The dren were all holding hands when this one either broke away or was 0 and ran to the rail. He was over in a flash. Nothing they could As far as we could tell, it was a straightforward accident; tragic, unavoidable.”

  Hamilton picked up the agenda before him and referred to it. “I ss that’s about it. So our primary thrust right now is to see if rchill and Appleby can establish a willful and malicious fire.” “What about Julie Wingate?” Hamilton stared at me for an instant.

  “Has anyone talked to her?” “I’d like to,” Apple admitted.

  “I asked about her,” Churchill added, “but got nowhere with is.” “I didn’t either,” I told them.

  “Nor will any of us,” Hamilton said, “unless we prove she did ething to warrant getting a court order.” “How did Wingate do on the lie detector?” I asked. “Inconclusive; and his wife refused to take one.

  Ron Potter spoke up again. “Is there any feeling he might have ted that fire?” Apple answered. “Too early to tell, but I agree with Dick. Someg stinks here, and I think old Brucie’s right in the middle of it.” “I agree,” I said. “His reaction following the fire was odd, and he ainly had motive and opportunity. I take it he has no real alibi for whereabouts that night?” Apple smiled. “They were in bed together all night-supposedly.” “Did you go with them to take the lie detector test?”

  “Yeah, up to Derby. That’s what bothers me. I know those maes are supposed to be pretty good, but they can be beat. To me, an nclusive result might just mean we were asking the wrong ques,s. I mean, I know in my gut Wingate ain’t playing straight.” “Where’re they from, by the way?” I asked. “Natick, Mass. He’s a bank manager; she’s a legal secretary. eaky clean on the outside.” Hamilton held up his hand at that. “One word of caution. This stigation is just beginning. We have some leads; we have a lot of ork to do. Let’s not jump to conclusions and go after the wrong pIe. We don’t have an arson here-we have an accidental fire. And don’t have a homicide. Right now, it’s an unexplained death, quite sibly also accidental. The press is going to have a good time with this, so let’s keep them as bored as possible.” He looked at Potter and me. “I want to thank you two gentlemen for coming today. We will, of course, keep you up to date on everything we find out.” “In other words,” Apple laughed, “bye-bye; we have private stuff to talk about.” This time, Hamilton showed his anger. “That’s enough.”

  Potter got to his feet. “No-absolutely. Thank you one and all. We appreciate the invite. I’d like Joe here to be a part of all this, and we’ll let you know what he digs up, too.” “So, what do you think?”

  Potter asked me as we stepped outside the building and headed toward our cars. His voice was falsely jaunty, as if he were whistling past the graveyard.

  “Like I said in there, I agree with LeMay and Apple; the whole thing stinks to high heaven.” His obvious reluctance to acknowledge the more suspicious aspects of the case made me sound harsher than I intended. “I also wish I could get hold of Julie Wingate and ask her where she was when the house burned down.

  “You think she had something to do with it?” “I don’t know. But it’s quite a coincidence the house went up in flames only hours after Wingate broke in fighting mad looking for his daughter.” “Shit. You know goddamn well this whole thing’s going to blow up in our faces. The news guys are going to have a ball. I mean, look at this mess: a cult, five deaths, possible arson, a flunked lie detector test.” “Enough to drive you out of politics, huh?” I couldn’t resist needling him. This was, after all, his big chance to act out his grand ambitions.

  “Enough to get me evicted from politics-damn straight.” “Relax.

  Island Pond was a big deal because people fucked up.

  You’re just doing your job.” He shook his head and got into his car.

  We both drove to his office-the first time I’d been there since my arrival-and he introduced me to his secretary, Florence Ginty. She and I made up his entire staff. For the rest of the day, I set up shop, establishing a filing system to absorb the mountain of paperwork I knew the State Police would soon produce on this case, and getting Flo used to me. Potter stayed in his office most of that time, and then later disappeared “to court,” a catchall phrase I’ve always envied.

  Flo left at about six, having thoroughly impressed me with her organizational wizardry. An investigator can either translate police reports and files into something usable for his boss’ day in court, or he have others do most of that for him while he hits the street to fill he blanks. In the best of worlds, he does a little of both. I hate the erwork, so my particular joy was discovering that Flo was my ect counterpart. She had no interest in the war stories of how rmation was gathered; her delight was in seeing it all properly filed, otated, and thereby transformed into legal data. She would be the ect bridge between me and Potter, and I promised her that whatextra help she might need down the road, she would get-guaranLater, however, sitting in my corner of the office alone, writing and timetables of things done and things to do, a feeling of dread an to take over. I sat back and looked out the window onto the street w.

  Tony Brandt had asked me back in Brattleboro why I didn’t just on vacation, instead of taking a leave of absence. I’d told him I ded a change of pace, not a vacation. The truth was I hadn’t taken cation since Ellen had died. I didn’t know what to do on a vacation. dn’t hunt, didn’t fish, didn’t collect butterflies or slides of exotic es. I ate, slept, read, watched TV, worked, and-these past few rs spent time with Gail.

  That, of course, was the nub of it. If I had gone on vacation, it rally would have been with Gail. But that hadn’t been an option time, not with the chill that had descended on that friendship. I reached out and turned off the desk lamp, allowing the lights the cars below to filter through the misty window panes and er across the ceiling in silence. I was truly between a rock and a d place. Instead of staying put in Brattleboro and tearing down the ive, half-seen barriers that had grown in silence between Gail and I was now arm wrestling with the ghosts of my childhood memowhile being sucked into a case that threatened the very serenity been seeking.

  It made me wonder if there was anything left for me in Brattro, beyond the very job which had helped cause my dilemma in the place, a rather morose perspective, even from my own presently r point of view.

  I decided it was time for a short break, before I ted checking the ceiling for good places from which to hang a rope. In the end, I found myself wandering the neighboring streets. The y night weather was still holding against all odds. I concentrated clearing my head, enjoying the same St. Johnsbury sights I’d reld as a kid on the town with a small pocketful of cash. Then, St. J. been jt-“The Maple Capital of the World,” home of most of the ustry in the area, and all of the nightlife.

  For once, things didn’t look too different. It was still an upscale town, with lots on the ball, at least in comparison with the rest of the Northeast Kingdom.

  I paused at an odd kind of bric-a-brac store on my way back to the office, and then went inside with no purpose in mind. A pretty girl behind the counter chatted with me as I wandered up and down the empty aisles, picking up objects and replacing them without thought.

  I ended up back on the street with a small bag in my hand, containing a twenty-dollar green stone necklace I’d bought for Laura.

  I’d done the same kind of thing for Gail in the past; purchased gifts on impulse, just things to make her smile. It felt suddenly awkward to have made the same gesture, but for the wrong person.

  I stuffed the bag in my coat pocket and returned to Potter’s office, determined to stop wracking my brain and to get on with what I was being paid to do. I picked up the phone and dialed the Rocky River Inn.

  I found the Wingates’ r
oom on the second floor of the Rocky River, directly opposite the stairs. Greta stood in the open doorway, waiting for me. That came as no great surprise. When I’d called to arrange a meeting with the Wingates, Greta had answered the Inn’s only public phone, and while I hadn’t told her I was inviting myself over, I figured she would grill them to find out my purpose. “You took your time.”

  There was some irritation in her voice, but not what I’d feared, given my hasty retreat from the cafe during our last encounter. “Sorry, Greta, I was in St. J.” She reached out and touched my shoulder, an unexpectedly maternal gesture. “Are you all right?” I looked at her in surprise. For all her cranky ways, I was fond of Greta we went back a long way together. She was loud-mouthed, unpredictable, thin-skinned, and always convinced she was right; but to my knowledge, she had never told a lie and she never let you wonder where you stood. She was getting old, of course, along with the rest of us, and I seriously doubted she would age with any grace whatsoever, by now I knew my affection would overcome anything she could w at me.

  “You look tired,” she said. “It’s been a long day.” She stood aside to let me enter the room. I was touched by her ative concern for my psyche, and privately amused by her typical ility to really let it show.

  There were only two pieces of furniture on which one could sit bed and a single hard-back chair. Ellie Wingate was sitting on the er; Bruce Wingate, naturally, was perched ramrod-stiff in the r. The room had a single window, rendered milky white by the old, tIe plastic sheet that sagged across it to cut the drafts. A single bulb g above the peeling white wrought-iron bed. The floors and walls e blotchy with an artistic assortment of earth-colored stains. A ked, balding velour painting of a toreador was the sole decoration, ging over the battle-scarred dresser where a mirror should have I parked myself against that wall, with my elbow on the dresser Ellie Wingate was staring at the floor, like a penitent in church. bulb hung behind her, so her face was in shadow. Not so her band’s, across the way. The harsh light endued his face with the niness of a news photo. “So what do you want?” I was silent for a moment, wondering how much good this would e, now that I was here. “I just wanted to talk about a few things.” Greta jumped right in. “Good. We’d like to do that, too.” I raised my eyebrows at her, interested. It didn’t bother me if they ted to get the ball rolling. It might prove more educational. “What are you doing to locate their daughter?” Greta asked. “Specifically?”