Open Season (Joe Gunther Mysteries)

by Archer Mayor

  “Sounds better than a long shot.”

  “I don’t think so. This is more complicated than that. Ski Mask has got something bigger on his mind and so have the people who killed Frank. My nose tells me Davis was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that was near Kimberly Harris—or whatever her name was.”

  “Okay . You get me the list; I’ll get the warrants.”

  I noticed a light on in Kunkle’s office. I knocked and stuck my head in. He was sitting at his desk with his hands flat on the tabletop, as if in a trance. He looked up at me, startled. “What?”

  “Just wondered if you came back.”

  “Bed check?”

  “No. We were supposed to meet.”

  “I forgot.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Are you all right?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Pure and simple concern. Not that you’d consider me a candidate, but there are people you can talk to if you’re feeling all boxed up inside.”

  He gave me a sour smile. “Write me off as a wacko.”

  I shook my head. “Willy, I already think you’re a wacko. I’m just worried you’re going to end up killing yourself—or someone else.”

  “Thanks. Same to you.” I closed the door and went back to my office. I had almost finished my list for Brandt when the phone rang. It was Danvers.

  “Her real name—or at least the one we’ve got for her—is Pamela Stark. She was arrested in Boston for soliciting.” He gave me the file reference number. “Does that do anything for you?”

  “It opens a whole new can of worms.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, I’m grateful. Right now, a can of worms is exactly what I need. By the way, do you know anybody over at DEA—preferably in records?”

  “Why?”

  “I think the guy who killed Pamela Stark sported a drug-induced hunchback.”

  There was a stunned silence at the other end. I heard him chuckle. “I thought Murphy was bad. You’ll do anything for a favor, won’t you?”

  “It’s true.”

  “I’m sure it is. You couldn’t pull that one out of your hat. As it turns out, I’m pretty good friends with one of the old-timers in that department. But I want something in return.”

  “What?”

  “When this whole thing is over, send me a copy of the final report, will you? It’s got all the makings of a classic.”

  I said I would and gave him the information I wanted checked by the DEA. I had just hung up the phone when it rang.

  “Hi, Joe.” Gail’s voice sounded cautiously neutral.

  “Hi.”

  “Long time no see.”

  “Yeah, it feels that way.”

  “You want to come over?”

  “It’ll probably be late, if at all.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Martha’s back in town. I thought I might go over for a visit.”

  “That’s nice. I think she’d like that. She really missed you at the ceremony. The offer still stands, though—it doesn’t matter what time. The door’ll be unlocked.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “I was wondering,” she added after a pause. “Well, I guess it’s kind of stupid…”

  “Go ahead.”

  “How were things at your mother’s?”

  “All right. Cleared my head a little.”

  “About us?”

  I looked at the phone in surprise. “Us? No. I guess I mostly sorted out losing Frank. That kind of stuff.”

  “Oh. Of course.”

  “What about us?”

  “Nothing. Things have been a little weird lately, you have to admit.”

  Her laugh was like a misplaced punctuation mark. “You almost died twice that I know of. Did anyone shoot at you today?”

  “Not so far.”

  She sighed. “I missed not seeing you when you got back.”

  “Oh yeah. Sorry. I wanted to bring Tony up to date.”

  “I thought you were going to call me to bring you back.” Her tone had a false heartiness to it, as if she were just clearing up some procedural details.

  “Leo lent me one of his cars.”

  “That was nice. Which one?”

  “Cadillac.”

  “Good Lord… I’ve missed you, Joe.”

  “I’ll try to get over tonight. I just don’t know how things’ll go.”

  “Well, I didn’t mean just for that. It would be nice, but I mean… Well, with all this stuff going on, I’ve been kind of worried, you know? I’d really hate to lose you.”

  “I think you’re safe there.”

  “Sure…” I could feel her struggling on the other end. I knew it wouldn’t take much from me to help her out, but I kept silent. “Well, I’ll let you go. I know you must be busy. Give Martha my best.”

  The line went dead, and I carefully replaced the receiver in its cradle. So much for that.

  Aside from Frank and Ellen, Gail was the one person for whom I’d developed a love. Being with her, sometimes just watching her from a distance, crumpled something up inside me. Now she was the only one left.

  I stared at the phone, knowing that calling her back and seeing her tonight would be a hell of lot more important than holding Martha’s hand. It would be the breach in the pretty picket fence we’d constructed between us, the fence that allowed us to do everything but permanently share the same backyard. A large part of me ached to do just that—to simply admit what I so often felt—and that was especially true right now, with Frank’s death clinging to my shoulders.

  And that was the catch—the excuse. I was too vulnerable right now, like other times when I’d shied away from trusting myself, and Gail, to make more than we had of our separate lives.

  I pushed the phone to the corner of the desk and returned to my list of names.

  · · ·

  Martha silently gathered me into a hug once she saw who was at the door. We stood there for quite a while, between the warmth of the house and the cold outdoors, before I finally felt I could risk letting go. The television was on in the den—Frank’s old lair.

  She offered me milk and cookies and we sat together on the couch watching one idiot show after another. She fell asleep at last, her head on my shoulder. I stretched her out, covered her with my jacket, and watched the tube until the station went to static. I never did get to Gail’s.

  20

  A woman was severely beaten in her apartment last night, apparently by the same man in a ski mask who has been responsible for a recent rash of crimes in Brattleboro. Starting with the shotgun killing of James Phillips by Thelma Reitz on January 3, this mysterious masked man, whom police have yet to identify, has been involved in a series of assaults, thefts, and possibly one other death—that of police Captain Frank Murphy on January 10—now officially ruled a traffic accident.

  With this latest assault, however, a possible motive has been found for the unknown assailant’s previous actions. Susan Lucey, last night’s victim and a “part-time” prostitute, told this reporter that the man police have labeled Ski Mask forced his way into her apartment and demanded to know what she had told police earlier in the day about the death of Kimberly Harris, found murdered at the Huntington Arms apartment complex on September 15, 1983. Harris and Lucey reportedly worked together as prostitutes for a brief period several months prior to Harris’s death.

  The Harris case, the most sensational in Brattleboro’s history, ended with the conviction of William Davis, who at the time of his arrest was the janitor of the Huntington Arms complex. Davis, a black Vietnam veteran originally from Baltimore, claimed throughout the trial that he had been framed and was innocent of all charges.

  It seems the police might now be in agreement. Lt. Joseph Gunther, acting head of the Police Department’s Support Services, has been rumored for weeks to be investigating the old case. Indeed, it was Lt. Gunther who visited Susan Lucey yesterday before she was assaulted and who questioned her on her relations
hip with the late Miss Harris.

  I stopped reading half way through and put the paper down. “Exciting stuff.”

  Tom Wilson, the town manager, glowered at me. “Did you read it all?”

  “I got the gist of it.”

  “I want you to read it all. If I end up doing something you’ll live to regret, I want you to know why.”

  I nodded and looked at the other people in the room—Brandt, Dunn, Patrol Captain Billy Manierre, and town counsel Robert Denby. They sat like boys outside the principal’s office. I went back to reading.

  Katz had dug up much of what there was to dig, especially on the prostitute angle. Surprisingly, he still missed the connection between Ski Mask’s early victims and the Harris jury members, as irrelevant as that was now. He also didn’t bring out a lot of what we were currently holding—all the forensic stuff, Harris’s time cards, her bank records, or even the fact that her name wasn’t Harris. All that just revealed how good he was at combining peripheral knowledge with some jazzy writing. Still, he knew more than we had officially released, and I couldn’t deny that the news of Susan Lucey’s beating came as a double shock.

  I put the paper down a second time.

  “Finished?” Wilson asked.

  “Yup.”

  “Just to give you the benefit of the doubt, is it true you saw Lucey and talked to her about Harris?”

  “Yes. This is the first I heard of her being beaten up. I’d like to talk to her.”

  “Talk to me first, assuming that isn’t monumentally inconvenient.”

  “To be fair,” Brandt interrupted, “Joe would have had no reason to talk to you until now in any case. He reports to me. I report to you.”

  “In theory, you mean.”

  “I’ve kept you up to date.”

  Wilson’s face reddened and he grabbed the paper out of my lap. “Then why the hell is most of this new to me? I had no idea Harris was a hooker.” He was tense, but under control.

  “Most of it isn’t new. I’ve kept you apprised of the major elements in this case. The prostitute angle is less than a day old. You know a lot more than Katz does, and you’ll know even more before the end of the day. These are political and PR problems. They had to surface sooner or later.”

  “I’d say they were legal ones,” Denby softly said.

  Wilson glanced at Denby and nodded. “He’s right. We could be taken to the cleaners on this thing. I’ll give a shit about the politics when I’m up to my ass in lawsuits. How the hell did Katz make the Kimberly Harris connection?”

  We all looked at each other. I finally stated the obvious. “He says it was through Lucey.” Wilson shook his head in exasperation. “I know that, for Christ’s sake. I meant, how did he find her?” There was silence in the room. “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe we should ask him.” Denby said.

  “What would he get out of a conversation like that?” asked Dunn. Brandt started fiddling with his pipe. “We could give him something—trade a little. Up to now, he’s been baying at our walls, trying to get in. If we let him in, he might at least tone things down a notch. The closer we get to cracking this thing, the more harm stories like that will do us. He might even be of some help if we approach him right.”

  “That’ll be the day.”

  Wilson held up his hand. “Fine; whatever. If you want to try playing footsie, it’s okay with me. I just want to know what’s coming next. I’m tired of being blindsided. The selectmen put me on the griddle every time we get together—and that’s been a lot lately—and I don’t have anything to tell them.”

  “That was per agreement. You were willing to take the hot seat,” Brandt reminded him.

  “What was agreed was that we should let as few people know what Gunther was doing as possible, until he was sure we couldn’t get out of this thing.” He shook the paper again. “Wouldn’t you say that time has come? In fact, wouldn’t you admit we missed the boat a little on this one? I’d have been a whole lot happier if the selectmen had read this with the dubious comfort of advance knowledge. As it was, the damn paper wasn’t even distributed before my phone started ringing off the wall.”

  Brandt finally stopped fiddling and lit up his pipe. “We have no way of knowing when Ski Mask is going to pop up.”

  Wilson shook his head. “You miss the point. As it reads now, the police department has been reinvestigating the Harris case for weeks, piling up data, stepping over a growing number of corpses, opening us up to Christ-knows-how-many potential lawsuits, and the hoard hasn’t been let in on any of it. I mean, Jesus, I gather Dunn here was given inside information. He’s not even a town official.”

  “Amen,” muttered Dunn.

  Wilson glared at him. “Tony, I was willing to play dumb with the board on the premise I’d be the first to know of any developments. You’ve probably gotten my ass fired, you know that?”

  Brandt took the pipe out of his mouth and shut his eyes for a moment. Ten long seconds drifted by before he spoke. “All right. Let me talk to them. Until Joe and Frank went to Connecticut, we weren’t even sure Harris shouldn’t be left just where she was. A lot has happened since then; some of it, like Joe’s meeting with Susan Lucey, is so new we haven’t been able to digest it yet.” He pointed at the paper with his pipe. “That’s the real damage here. Katz blew the whistle before the players were ready to start. I do have one major misgiving, though, and it’s the same one I’ve had from the beginning. If I have to give everything I’ve got to the board, I doubt any of us will have to wait for the next paper before the word’s all over town.”

  “Could that be any worse than the way things are now?” Wilson asked.

  Brandt nodded. “Yes. We still have a lot Katz doesn’t know. If it gets out before we’ve been able to put it to use, all sorts of things might go wrong, some of which we might never even hear about.”

  “For example.”

  I interrupted here. “For example, we pretty much know Ski Mask got this whole thing started because he wanted the investigation reopened; what we don’t know is why. We’ve also got a pretty good idea that he’s not the only player in this game—there may be others whose motives are even murkier. Now if we just dump all we know on the table without playing with it first—at least for a while—we run the risk that Ski Mask or the other guys will recognize something we don’t and will proceed on their own, in private. It seems obvious right now that Ski Mask at least needs us to do his homework. If we don’t maintain that role, and allow him to dispense with us, we’ll either be left with the strong suspicion that we have the wrong man in jail, but with no way to prove it, or we might have a growing stack of bodies for which we’ll have no explanation. Either way, we’ll look like a traffic cop who’s being totally ignored by the traffic. If you’re worried about lawsuits, that’s when I’d advise running for cover.”

  Wilson passed his hand across his eyes. “God. We’re not geared for this. Okay, Tony, I’ll call a special session for this afternoon or tonight—as soon as possible. You tell them what you want. But pretend it’s all you’ve got, will you? I mean, it’s not inconceivable that some of them might try to sue you for withholding vital information if they found out about it. Right, Bob?”

  Denby nodded. “Or you for conspiring with him.”

  I tossed Denby a salute. “Thank you, Robert.”

  “He asked.”

  Wilson stood up. “All right, all right. Let’s just do it and hope it doesn’t all blow up in our faces. Let me know how the meeting with Katz goes. It would be a big help if we got him to cool his jets a bit.” He got to the door and stopped before opening it. “Needless to say, gentlemen, this conversation is not to be repeated, right?” He stuck his finger in Brandt’s direction. “And Tony, never again—my playing dumb for you is over.”

  Brandt, Manierre and I stayed behind.

  “You certainly were chatty,” I said to Manierre.

  He smiled. He was a large, gentle, grandfatherly sort, always immaculate in un
iform, looking like the stereotype of the friendly cop from the 1950s, which he was. “Oh, I’m just a goldfish around you sharks.”

  “Impressive, were we?”

  “I was thrilled. It reminded me of Military Intelligence.”

  Brandt tilted his chair back against the wall. “I wanted Billy to know what was going on.”

  “Let me know when you find out.”

  “I also got all those warrants and thought Billy’s men might be of some help. I told him what they were all about.”

  “Can you spare anyone or do we pull in the state police?”

  “How many are you putting onto it?”

  “Everybody.”

  “How about three from the morning shift and two each from the other two?”

  “Great. What’s the story on Susan Lucey, by the way? Did she ever call us, or did she go straight to the newspaper?”

  “She called for you, but no one knew where you were. She wouldn’t talk to anyone else and wouldn’t say what was wrong. I don’t know how she got together with Katz. Where were you, anyway?”

  “With Martha Murphy. I forgot to call in. Where’s Lucey now?”

  “She’s at home. We tracked her down after we read about the attack, but she refused to talk. There wasn’t much more we could do.”

  “How badly did he beat her?”

  “I’ve seen worse. It wasn’t the beating, really. I think he scared the living daylights out of her.”

  Brandt handed me the warrants. “Why don’t you guys set all this up? Use the interrogation room if you need space.” We both rose. As I put my hand on the doorknob, he added, “Don’t wander away without checking back. I’m going to try to set up a meet with Katz and his boss as soon as possible.”

  Manierre and I gathered our troops. Excluding ourselves, we had six men. Between us, we had to request and search through the files of four travel agents, eight car-rental agencies, one airline, two taxi services, two bus companies, and one railroad. Each man took one warrant and headed out the door. Mine was for the Good Times Travel Agency. First, however, I went to my office to use the phone.