by Archer Mayor
As the four-wheeler ground its way up a threadbare dirt-and-grass ski slope that doubled as a summit-bound access road, Joe took in Bromley’s far leaner offerings of a putt-putt park, a zip line, and a triple alpine slide snaking through the trees far to their right. Body or no, the business had to keep its customers happy. Along those lines, the crime scene up top had been cordoned off and the crime techs and cops asked to keep a low profile—not from consideration for the laughter and thrilled cries wafting on the warm breeze, but rather to avoid spooking any potential witnesses into leaving prematurely.
Everything about this case so far seemed steeped in incongruous contrast. Driving home the point, Joe twisted around to enjoy the hundred-mile view as the valley floor fell away during their journey. South, extending toward Stratton Mountain and Massachusetts beyond, it presented as a wrinkled blanket of ancient peaks and river-carved valleys, surmounted by a cloudless blue sky that intensified and deepened as it soared overhead.
There were few times as rewarding to a New Englander as the assertion of early summer, taking over from an often stuttering, unstable, and unconvincing spring.
Joe got off the machine at the first yellow police tape barrier, thanked his chauffeur, logged in with a clipboard-equipped state trooper, and walked to where a large white tent stood over Jane Doe’s last resting place.
This easy commingling of different uniforms was the new way investigations were being conducted nowadays, at least under ideal circumstances. Representatives from every relevant police agency—in this instance, the sheriff’s office, the state police, the VBI, and the state forensic lab—were called out, inter-coordinated at the scene, and expected to get the job done.
Back less than a decade, a major case like this would have fallen solely to the state police. Actually, before the mid-1940s, the sheriff and local town constable were pretty much it, with results that explained the creation of the state police. Now, because of some almost-forgotten governor’s stroke of a pen, the VBI handled most capital crimes, usually upon being invited by the prevailing legal authority—here, the Bennington County State’s Attorney.
It had been an awkward transition in the beginning, with VBI agents and VSP investigators stalking one another like wary fighting cocks. But because the ranks of the former were largely made up of defectors from the latter—happy to be free of the tightly regulated, top-heavy state police—eventually a grudging truce was reached. It’s also fair to say that in a state so thinly populated as Vermont, no agency was in fact big enough to bear much of an institutional grudge against another. Among Vermont’s one thousand or so fully certified cops—grand total—there were just too many friendships that crossed company lines.
A small, striking woman standing outside the tent saw Joe approaching and came to meet him.
“Any luck with the ME?” she asked.
This was Samantha Martens, universally called Sam or Sammie. Unofficially, she was Joe’s lieutenant, frequently functioning as such during his occasional absences. But that entailed more than it implied, given Joe’s rank and responsibilities as VBI’s field force commander, which in turn explained why Sam wasn’t eager for any official title. She was happier, in her words, to remain a “street digger.”
“She was whacked over the head and newly pregnant,” Joe reported.
Sam made a face. “Great. That’ll guarantee headlines.”
Joe glanced to where the white-clad crime techs were putting away their equipment after hours of searching, taking photographs, collecting odds and ends, and creating plaster casts of impressions. “Any luck while I’ve been gone?”
“We’ve definitely had worse,” she allowed. “They found a set of tire marks they believe correspond to a pair of boot prints near the dump site, which fits with the body being brought here on a four-by-four and dropped off by someone with a size ten-and-a-half foot. It ain’t a confession, but it’s something. The boot treads are worn and have the usual nicks and gouges we can match to the originals if we ever find ’em.”
“Good,” he said. “Anything from the canvass?”
“Yeah. That, too,” she answered, holding up her phone. “Lester’s on it, down at the base lodge. We got uniforms still knocking on doors and interviewing people who work here, but he’s found something on video, from the mountain’s CCTV system. You wanna go down and look?”
“You bet,” Joe said, turning back toward where he’d come.
“Hang on, boss,” she said. “I got a better idea.”
She led them in the opposite direction, out of the trees, to a clearing above the mountain’s two chairlift turnarounds.
“You know,” she told him over her shoulder, “technically, you’re walking on both the Long and Appalachian Trails right now. They overlap along this section.”
He smiled. “I knew they hit a few of these mountains,” he said. “Stratton, too, right?”
“A bunch of ’em,” she confirmed, aiming for the older of the two lifts, the open-air model named the Blue Ribbon Quad. “Stratton, Bromley, Killington. After that, the Long splits off and hits Lincoln, Camel’s Hump, Mount Mansfield, and Jay, among others, while the Appalachian heads for Maine. It’s a real workout.”
He laughed as they readied themselves to be swept off their feet for the downhill ride. “And you’ve done both, knowing you.”
“I did the Long,” she conceded, “before Emma and happy domesticity. I thought about tackling the AT, but I think that’s behind me now.”
Joe wasn’t so sure. Sam did have a preschooler and lived with Emma’s father—another of his cops, in fact—but she was fit and driven enough to be fully capable of taking on the Appalachian Trail at any time, including probably well into her retirement years.
Her recommended route proved a spectacular way of reaching the base lodge, even including a change of chairs halfway down the mountain. What he’d admired earlier by twisting around and craning his neck on a jolting machine could now be enjoyed from the comfort of a gently rocking padded chair, allowing him time and leisure to dangle before a panorama of natural beauty.
They were so used to working in such a wilderness-weighted part of the world, with its mud, foliage, and sugaring seasons, in addition to the standard four, that the two cops took the scenery before them in stride—if not for granted—by continually talking all the way down.
At the bottom, they cut between the alpine slide terminus and a cluster of heavily populated trampolines, crossed the equivalent of a fairway, complete with tents full of child-oriented activities, and entered the lodge.
As they walked, Sam phoned Lester Spinney and asked for directions, until she and Joe came to the entrance of a large room filled with electronics, flat-screen displays, and the sound of radio communications. A central map of the resort, festooned with LED indicators, monitored the health and activity of the mountain’s mechanical heartbeat. With a year-round calendar of events, and catering to a particular form of high-risk recreation, Bromley—like most of its kind—had to be as aware of its operations as the average flight deck officer on an aircraft carrier.
A very tall, absurdly skinny plainclothes cop with short blond hair and animated features motioned to them from a corner of the room, which was otherwise occupied by serious-looking people moving from one station to another as they pursued their business, no doubt counting the minutes until the cops returned the mountaintop to its rightful owners.
Lester Spinney stood as his two colleagues drew near. He’d been sitting next to a lumpy man at a keyboard facing a tiered bank of TV screens.
“Worthwhile trip to see Hillstrom?” he asked, keeping things vague for the sake of the surrounding civilians.
“Yeah,” Joe said, glancing at the screens. “What did you get?”
Lester resumed his seat, letting the other two look over his shoulder. “This is Barry, by the way,” he said, to which the lumpy man held up a hand and twiddled his fingers without bothering to look back.
“Hey.”
&n
bsp; “Hey, yourself,” Joe answered.
“Bring it up,” Lester told him.
With the punch of a couple of keys, one of the monitors before them filled with the static image of a broad patch of rough-looking dirt road bordered by a pair of blazing overhead security lights. There was a digital clock in one corner, rhythmically counting off the seconds.
“This was recorded last night, at the bottom of two of the trails,” Lester explained. “It’s a road marking the western edge of the mountain face. They use it to bring equipment to the top, among other things. To orient you, the bunny slope and a condo village are just above here, to the left. After that, you get into the trees.” He paused before adding, “Boss, that’s probably how they took you up just now. Hang on, here it comes.”
As they watched, a four-wheeler entered the frame, trundled across it diagonally, and disappeared, heading uphill.
“Back it up and hold it,” Joe requested.
Barry did so, immobilizing the vehicle in midframe. The camera had a remarkably high resolution. Nevertheless, its angle caught the four-wheeler’s driver from over his right shoulder, and thus didn’t show his face.
Tellingly, strapped across the rear deck behind the driver, was a long, thin, plastic-wrapped package, the size and shape of a human body.
“Ouch,” Sam said.
“You see what I mean,” Lester said. “Doesn’t look like anything normal, especially in the middle of the night.”
“Do you have him coming back down?” Joe wanted to know.
“Show him what you got, Barry,” Lester ordered.
Moments later, the same frame was filled with the four-wheeler returning from the opposite direction. The clock showed the time as twenty-three minutes after the first sighting. The rear deck now held only an empty, folded tarp.
More important, the driver’s face was upturned and staring at the lens as he drove by.
“Can you print that?” Joe asked. “And a copy of the video itself?”
Lester retrieved a manila envelope from beside Barry’s keyboard and handed it over—an example of his natural efficiency. Joe slid out an enlargement of the image before them.
“Guess we’ll be wanting to talk with him,” Sammie commented.
“You ever seen this man?” Joe asked Barry.
“Nope,” came the terse reply.
Joe returned the prints to Lester. “And we couldn’t get a clean shot of the registration?”
“Too dirty.”
Joe tapped Barry on the shoulder. “Thanks.” He gestured to his subordinates to follow him into the hallway, where, after looking around for privacy’s sake, he said, “Let’s get this out to everyone who’s canvassing. There’s got to be someone who knows this guy.”
“Why’s that a given?” Sam asked as Lester took back the manila envelope.
“It’s not,” Joe allowed, “but why else would he go through the bother of dumping a body up top, unless he was familiar with the layout?”
“On the other hand,” Sam asked, “why dump it here at all? Why not in a ditch? This seems awfully convoluted.”
“And crowded,” Lester tossed in. “They’ve got things going on at night, too, a twenty-four-hour presence, and cameras. The killer was taking a big risk.”
Joe nodded, saying almost as an afterthought, “He’s not a killer yet. Let’s find him first.”
They fell silent as two Bromley staffers appeared from around a corner and walked by, chatting.
Joe extended his hand for the envelope again. “Did I see you had two shots printed?”
Lester gave it up. “The other’s a long view.”
Joe pulled it out and studied it carefully. “The four-wheeler’s got some distinctive dents and markings, enough for an identification. Make sure you get that out, too. If people can’t place the man’s face, maybe they’ve seen the rig in the neighborhood. It’s not like you drive those things long-distance. If we’re lucky, this whole case’ll be a local we can wrap up fast and easy, before the press gets into a lather.”
“How do you want to handle them if they do get wind of it?” Sam asked.
“I called Bill Allard from the road,” Joe said, referencing the VBI director, his immediate boss. “He said to refer everything to him.”
“Should we get ahead of it and put out have-you-seen-this-person flyers for Jane Doe?” Lester asked. “No one could claim we were being secretive then, and it might get us something in return.”
“I’ll compromise,” Joe replied. “Use the state intel center to issue a police-only Be On the Lookout. ‘Seeking to Identify’ or something like that.”
“The OCME got nothing running her prints?” Sam asked. The OCME was shorthand for Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
“No,” Joe said. “Not too surprising, given her age.” He shrugged, handed the envelope back to Lester, and added, “What we got is what we got, until we get lucky.”
He then gave Sammie a closer look. “Where’s Willy? I would’ve thought he’d be all over this.”
She smiled ruefully. “How often do any of us know where he is?”
* * *
Willy Kunkle was at home alone, in West Brattleboro, in the house he shared with Sammie and their daughter, Emma, who was at that moment in preschool. It was a single-story, suburban-style bungalow, at the back of a horseshoe-shaped drive, which he’d purchased before he and Sam got together.
That helped explain why the house reflected so many of his unique peculiarities.
From the outside, it looked boring and stark, bereft of the usual visual softeners like bushes or nearby trees. It stood on its plot, bare and exposed, exuding the look of either a forgotten spec house—long out of date and perhaps never lived in—or the less comforting aura of a subtly disguised fortress.
For those who knew Kunkle, the latter was a foregone conclusion. Indeed, if asked, Willy freely admitted that the absence of vegetation allowed him an open field of fire, if it ever became necessary to mount a determined defense.
As a result, it was no surprise to find that the walls were reinforced, bullet-resistant, and fire-retardant; there was auxiliary power in the basement, an independent water well, a larder full of long-term provisions, a security system featuring cameras and detectors, and enough weapons under lock and key to hold off a small battalion.
As with Willy himself, none of this was evident at first glance. The interior was immaculately neat, rationally but sparsely furnished, and—given those walls—extraordinarily quiet. But even though this was a family home, with a small child, any visitor might notice an unusual feeling about it—not malevolent, necessarily, but certainly watchful and cautious in nature.
This was Willy’s sanctuary, in the true sense of the word: as close to a place of comfort, safety, and sanity as existed for him. Sammie was fully aware of this, which had factored heavily in her agreeing to live here, instead of insisting on “a place of their own.”
However, Willy wasn’t feeling too comfortable right now, making of his retreat the hollow equivalent of a child’s blanket pulled over his head for protection. He was in the worst pain he’d experienced in a very long time—searing, throbbing, unremitting, and resistant to any treatment.
Its source, to use his own blunt, unsentimental vernacular, was that he was a cripple, saddled with a limp left arm from a rifle bullet received in the line of duty many years before. It should have ended his career, and did interrupt it, until Joe, in those days his boss at the Brattleboro police, had intervened in his behalf. Such was Gunther’s reputation, and Vermont’s often creative approach to problem solving, that Joe’s efforts had actually succeeded. The result had been a nontransferrable, quasi-unofficial, uniquely narrow blessing: Forever after, Willy could function as a cop only under Joe’s aegis, regardless of what agency paid his wages. That meant that if the older man ever retired, Willy’s choice of professions was most likely over.
Not that he gave a damn about any such considerations at the present. Th
e pain in his arm was such that it had been all he could do to fake the morning family routine with Sam and Emma before closing the door to consider his options. He knew Sam had headed out to a probable homicide—usually Willy’s cup of tea—but he’d lied by saying he had something else to clear up first.
Wishful thinking, of course.
Technically, that ancient bullet had destroyed the bundle of nerves at the shoulder that helps make an arm work as it should. The injury might possibly have been repaired immediately afterwards, but naturally, that’s not what Willy had opted to do. He’d retreated—from the department, his colleagues, what few friends he could claim. Unbeknownst to all, he’d returned to drinking, ruining a years-long streak of sobriety, surrendering to his familiar and comforting sense of doom. By the time Joe Gunther smoothed a road back for him, medical opinion believed too much time had elapsed for the arm to be saved.
There had been occasional pain since, but always manageable, mostly not an issue. He had painkillers available, rarely used, and his doc and he had discussed their use, in light of Willy’s past alcoholism. For a man of Kunkle’s highly controlling nature, his self-discipline was something his physician paradoxically trusted to be reliable.
But something had changed recently. Willy didn’t know how or why, but in just days, the pain had come on fast, hard, and was no longer taking a backseat to anything.
He stood now in his bathroom, his shirt off, before the mirror, staring at the useless limb as if it were the radiating agony within it. It made no sense to him how something this uncomfortable could look so banal.
He opened the cabinet and studied his diminishing choice of analgesics. He’d been hitting them as never before, trying to keep the onslaught in check. It was beginning to get tricky, figuring out how much to take without diminishing his performance. The last thing he needed was for people to discover what was happening.
