by Archer Mayor
“Anyone else know yet?” “I called Wirt, so I guess he’ll be here soon.
“Okay. Let’s try to keep this under our hats until the State Police show up. It’d be better if we could keep the road blocked off, as well as both slopes. So far, only you two have been to the bottom, is that right?” Both Rennie and Pearl nodded. “What’s the ground like down there?” Pearl answered. “Crusty, but pretty soft still from the last few days.
That’s why I went down there; I figured I’d find some tracks.” “Crust isn’t enough to hold you,” Rennie added. “By the end of the day, it should be like concrete.” “All right. All the more reason to keep people away. Where do you live, Mitch?” “Connecticut.” “You staying nearby?” “Lyndonville the LynBurke Motel.” “Can you stick around to give a statement to the police?” “Sure.” “Okay. Who’s got some paper something to write on?” The words and gestures were all automatic.
Despite the location, and my being far from my home turf, I was still a cop, and this was something, unfortunately, I knew all too well how to do.
Buster pulled a couple of large receipts out of his pocket and handed them over. “Back sides are blank.” “Thanks. I’m going down to have a look. Just keep everyone away and let me know when the troops arrive.”
Everyone nodded. I started down the path, tendrils of mist shroudg my feet and legs. The more I immersed myself between the two nks and into the fog, the more I felt like I was being sucked into the rth, surrounded by smoke without odor. The effect was heightened my concentration on the path, muddy and slick with the passage of veral pairs of feet already. In a few hours, unless the cold really set ,we were going to have to set up ropes to save people from skidding raight down to the bottom.
I stopped at the foot of the path and looked around. Above me, could hear muffled voices, the occasional scrape of a boot on gravel; here, in the ravine, I felt as if I was underwater. I was as aware of y breathing as if I were wearing a scuba tank. I took Buster’s receipts and my pen out of my pocket and began sketch what I found: the number of footprints and their directions, er cans, food wrappers, an occasional condom, assorted other trash. owly I walked, taking inventory, aware all the time of Wingate’s body ining definition the closer I got to it.
Finally, we were together, the only sharp-edged objects in the iddle of a cloud. I looked up and saw the hazy outlines of people oking down at me. It made me think of the gladiators in the center a locked arena. I turned my attention back to Wingate, trying to ncentrate.
He’d been stabbed many times by the look of it. His upper back d neck were covered with slash and puncture wounds. One ear as severed, lying two feet off to the side. He was wearing khaki nts, sneakers, and a pale windbreaker-not enough for the present Id temperature, but enough for earlier last night, when we’d last lked.
I studied the ground. There was a lot of blood, particularly from e left side of his neck. I bent over, trying not to move my feet and us add to the confusion of tracks. There was a gaping laceration just the left of the trachea: a bull’s-eye to the carotid. He would have died ithin a minute of receiving that wound alone.
I looked over my shoulder and examined the grassy slope behind e, the one leading up to the road. There were no gouges, no scrapes, prints, no bent vegetation. No body had rolled down it on the way the bottom.
I slowly began to separate the footprints: Wingate’s sneakers, my n shoes, Rennie’s and Mitch’s lug soles, which I’d made a point of entally cataloging at the top of the path. There were others, what oked like one more pair of small smooth-soled sneakers and a third of lug soles.
Besides ourselves, at least three other people had shared this spot with Wingate. But that was far from certain; there’d been a lot of activity, much of it from Rennie.
“Hey, Rennie, how long were you down here?” I didn’t bother looking up to distinguish one shape from the others.
“Not long. Just enough to check it out. Why?” “Looks like you tap-danced all over the place.” It was said at half volume, more to myself than to him, but I shouldn’t have said it at all.
“Fuck you, Joe.” “Sorry, out of line.” “I didn’t know if the son of a bitch was dead or not.” “I know, I know.” The entire exchange had been pointless, reflecting more my own frustration than any anger toward Rennie. It irked the hell out of me that I’d been speaking to Wingate just hours before, too dull to sense something in the offing. The fact that I wasn’t clairvoyant never seemed an adequate explanation at times like these. This, I kept thinking, had been preventable somehow.
“Joey.” “Yeah, Buster.” “Wirt’s here.” Great, I thought. The Hun himself. “Okay. Tell him I’m coming up; I’ll meet him at the top.” I quickly added a few last notes to my diagram and backtracked as carefully as I could.
Wirt was not happy at my involvement, and demonstrated the fact at his officious best. “What were you doing down there?” I handed him the map I’d drawn. “Nailing down the scene before anyone else messed it up.
It’s damn near unreadable as it is.” He took the map without looking at it. “You shouldn’t have been down there,” he snapped. “You’re the SA’s man, not BCI.” I walked over to his patrol car and opened the door. “Can I use your radio?” “Absolutely not.” He scowled angrily.
“Look around, Corporal, and think about what you’re doing here.
Your problems aren’t my fault, but I can sure as hell make my problems yours. I swung into the car and unhooked the mike, telling the dispatcher to get hold of Hamilton for me. I knew my anger at Wirt was irrational. Wingate’s death made my elation following last night’s interview seem conceited and smug. I’d dropped the ball in midplay, and I was taking it out now on Wirt.
“You know what we’ve got here?” I asked Hamilton when he got on the radio.
“Affirmative.” “But not the identity.” “Correct.” “It’s the man from Natick.” There was a moment’s silence. People love to listen in on police quencies in Vermont. Part of that is due to the large number of lunteer firefighters in the state, most of whom listen to scanners the y elevator operators listen to Muzak; the other part is because in as like the Kingdom, everybody knows, or once knew, everybody e; scanners have become the electronic version of the old party line, d a primary reason why cops try to be as oblique as possible in their mmunications.
“Ten-four. What do you advise?” “Keep the scene locked up until the crime lab arrives instead of ting your boys have first crack.” “Why should I do that?” “Lots of foot prints. Any more people and you’ll lose them. Also, ere’s nothing here that’s going to change over the next couple of urs.” There was a pause. My request was neither unreasonable nor precedented, but Hamilton still had to suppress a cop’s natural urge jump in and start digging. “All right. Give me Wirt.”
Wirt was already there, of course, seething down my neck. I nded him the mike and slipped out of the car.
I walked over to Buster. “Can I borrow your truck?” “Sure.” “For what it’s worth, I just cleared with the State Police lieutenant charge of all this that no one, not even cops, are supposed to go down at path or get near that scene before the lab guys show up. “So I can drop Wirt if he tries?” “You can have fun thinking about it.” I walked over to the truck d noticed the bike was missing from the back. “Where’s Jimmy?”
Buster shrugged. “Beats me.” ‘Damn. I think we can assume the cat’s out of the bag.” I’d known from the very start that we’d never keep this a secret, but I had hoped could at least interview the man’s widow within scant minutes of his iscovery without being beaten to the punch.
Now I doubted I’d be able do even that.
I drove directly to the Rocky River Inn. For once, the place was mpletely empty. It looked like an abandoned warehouse, the dirty, lastic-filtered light seeping through onto unswept floors and strewnout furniture, highlighting the grime on the walls and the cobwebs n the light fixtures.
I walked up the stairs to the second floor, two a
t a time, finding, as before, the Wingates’ door open. Ellie Wingate was sitting on the bed, half-dressed in her slip, with Greta beside her. Greta looked up at me scornfully. “Oh, the great Brattleboro detective-come to save the day.” I nodded at Ellie, who seemed to be listening to distant whispers.
“She knows?” “I wasn’t going to let the police tell her.” I crouched down in front of her, putting my face in her line of sight.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Wingate. I’ll need your help to find out who did this.” “You’ve been no help so far,” Greta muttered. I looked over at her.
“Greta, either be quiet or leave.” The depth of her anger mixed with my own. I fought back the impulse to air my own frustration and tried instead to concentrate on the drawn-out process of picking up the pieces.
Greta gave me a withering look, but didn’t say anything more. I got the impression, though, that some bridge had been burned in her mind, that I would never be “Joey” to her again.
“Mrs. Wingate, when did you see your husband last?” Her eyes were startlingly blank. She blinked once in a great while, but otherwise didn’t move. Her mind was filled with so many other, more insistent voices, that mine must have had the impact of a mosquito hitting a window.
“Ellie.” I reached out and touched her cheek. Her eyes shifted onto mine, but without appreciable recognition.
Her brow furrowed just a hint. “Last night,” she said in a whisper.
“When last night?” The furrow deepened. “Bedtime.” “You both went to bed at the same time?” Two blinks in a row. The eyes seemed to focus a little. “Yes.” The voice was stronger, but somehow less real.
“He didn’t wake you when he got up?” “No. I’d taken a Valium.” “How many?” Her body English all seemed very odd to me, a cross between being entranced and rehearsed, as if two behavior patterns were tugging at her simultaneously. “What did you do after I left last night?” “We went to bed.” “You didn’t talk to anyone? Didn’t see anyone?” She shook her head.
“You saw me,” Greta said. She sounded hurt.
Ellie Wingate nodded but didn’t look at her. “Oh, yes.” “What did you talk about?” She shrugged. Greta answered. “I gave them a letter and they told how you’d treated them… I should have known.” I turned back to the stricken woman, trying to make my voice d as bland as before. “What was in the letter, Ellie?” She didn’t answer. I straightened and glanced around the room. bed was still unmade, there were a couple of suitcases in the corner, e odds and ends on the bureau top and the bedside table, some hes hanging over the chair-basically the same as I remembered night.
I glanced at the trash basket near the bed. On the top was a pled, baIled-up envelope. I squatted down and poked at it with my and the back of my fingernail, trying to spread it open wide enough ead. I made out “Bruce Wingate” handwritten across the front in pt. My high hopes fell a little when I saw the envelope was empty. I tapped it with the pen. “Is this what Greta gave you last night, e?” She glanced over distractedly and became very still. “Where’s the letter that was inside?” “I don’t know.” She went back to studying her hands. “What did it say?” “I don’t remember.” I thought a different approach might shake more out of her. hen did you tear your stockings?” She raised her head disconcertedly. “What?” I repeated the question. “Yesterday,”
she said, frowning. “The envelope was on top, Ellie. It was put in the trash after you w out the stockings last night, after you took them off.
Isn’t this same envelope Greta handed you?” She closed up again. “I don’t remember.” Greta had been fidgeting in silence, either in deference to me, zch I seriously doubted, or because even she was beginning to realize not everything was as it seemed. Prolonged silences, however, were her strong suit. “Enough, Joe. She’s in shock.” I struggled with a surge of anger. Ellie Wingate’s husband was now g dead with his face in the dirt and yet she still seemed as unwilling elp me now as they’d both been earlier. Her reaction was baffling.
“How did you get the letter, Greta?” “It was in their cubbyhole downstairs. I don’t know how it got re.
“Any idea when?” She shrugged. “Could have been anytime-from midafternoon on.
I rose and crossed to the bathroom. Over the sink were several prescription bottles. I tore off a piece of toilet paper to keep my fingerprints from contaminating the one labelled Diazepam and then opened it, pouring the contents into my palm. There were twenty tablets. I read the label again carefully. Ellie said she took a Valium before bed. Prescription medicine labels sometimes border on Sanskrit, but this one I could figure out. The date of issue was about a month ago; the contents listed twenty tablets. None were missing.
I had called Mel Hamilton from the pay phone downstairs and was sitting on the top step of the staircase when he found me fifteen minutes later.
The Wingates’ door was still open, but Greta had moved Ellie to her own apartment at the end of the hall, albeit with a predictable amount of grumbling. Even she, however, could see that events had progressed beyond her ability to control them.
Hamilton was slightly winded when he reached the top. “You’ve been busy.” I raised my eyebrows, surprised at his acerbic tone of voice.
“Oh?” “You’ve contaminated a crime scene, overrun the attending State trooper, and now you’ve presumably ransacked the dead man’s apartment and interviewed his widow. I’m surprised you bothered to call me.
His face was as bland as ever, but he was truly irritated. He was also correct. While a Vermont cop is a cop anywhere in the state, regardless ofjurisdiction, I had been acting more by instinct than with good manners. The worst part was, I hadn’t given it a second thought until now. “I did contact you about cordoning off the crime scene.” It sounded lame as I said it.
“True, but you didn’t tell me you’d treated my trooper like a doormat or that you’d wandered straight into the middle of the crime scene.
We looked at each other for a moment. I was at a loss for words.
agonizing the local State Police head of the BCI had not been my nt. He was a man who could make things very difficult for me down line, when time came for his people and the State’s Attorney’s office oordinate the building of a case.
But a slow half smile crossed his face. “Thanks for the crime scene ch, by the way, and for locking the area up. It was a good call.” That was a relief, and deserved a reciprocal peace offering. “I’m y about Wirt.”
“Well, he can be a pain in the ass, but he knows his job. So, what you call me for?” I explained about the envelope, the Diazepam bottle, and the fact Ellie was under Greta’s care down the hall, ripe for further quesing.
Hamilton nodded and turned on his heel. “I brought along a pIe of people I want you to meet before we do any more interviewHe led the way down to the lobby. There, admiring his surroundas if he were at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, stood a tall, der man with glasses, straight blond hair, and the angular grace of raffe. He gave us a demonic, ear-to-ear grin and stuck a thin, bony d out to me. “Joe Gunther, right? I hear you’re the one who planted ‘hurry-up-and-wait’ order in the lieutenant’s ear here.” Hamilton allowed a tight smile, more reminiscent of the man I’d yesterday at the barracks. It made me think suddenly that his stiff eanor was a conscious attempt to create precision and order in the St of those people who relied on their guts for guidance. “This is ective Sergeant Lester Spinney. He’s under my command in the St. nsbury BCI; he’s also one of the four members of our new Major mes Squad.” “Hello,” I said, and shook his hand, wondering if his opening line e him for me or against me.
Spinney laughed. “Come on, you’re faking it. You don’t really w what MCS is, do you?” He had me there. “I’m a little behind on reading the mail I get you guys.” He smiled and looked at Hamilton. “And you wonder why I’m h a great detective. We’re supposed to be the A-Team-Don Johndriving Fords.” “Supposed to be?” I asked.
He smiled apologetically. “Well, that’s th
e way it would be in the vies.” Hamilton sighed. Spinney, all fresh-faced and boyish, didn’t look like he’d been away from home that many years. It was difficult imagining him as the elite of anything outside an intramural basketball league.
“How long you been with the State Police?” “Twelve years.” I was impressed.
“Gotcha, right? Everyone always thinks they screwed up the paperwork.”
“It did occur to me.” He shoved his long, thin hands deep into his pockets. The gesture seemed to calm him. His voice was abruptly quieter, his sentences more measured. Still, an almost juvenile enthusiasm remained in his eyes.
“No, I’ve been at this awhile. Being made a member of MCS has been the high point of my career.” “You still haven’t told me what it is.” He laughed and shook his head. “Right, right. Sorry. They also call us the Homicide Unit. Any time there’s a crime like this, they call the four of us in to support the local barracks BCI team. That way, we get a lot of experience and become the homicide experts within BCI.” “Sounds reasonable. How long has MCS been around?” “About six months.” I glanced over at Hamilton. “MCS is not in control; they are purely support. The local barracks Bureau of Criminal Investigation crew still supplies the case officer and heads the investigation; MCS does what the case officer tells them to do. Of course, their advice is appreciated.”
I’d always been a little slow to follow the ins and outs of the State Police command structure-it seemed so much larger than the number of people within it. “I thought you said he was from your barracks.” “He is, but he’s still in a support mode as a Major Crimes Squad member.
Crofter Smith, one of our regular BCI, will be the case officer on this one.” He looked at Spinney. “Where is Smith, by the way?” My spirits sagged at the mention of the name. I knew nothing about the man, and I had obviously misjudged Hamilton at first glance, but the impression Smith had made when we’d “met” inside the burned building had been less than overwhelming. I did recall, though, that Jonathon Michael had rated him a good cop. I tried to hang some hope on that thought.
