by Archer Mayor
Joe had listened to so many such stories, of almost feral couplings largely free of shared dinners, or movie dates, or thoughtful chats about hopes and ambitions. Steeped in booze or drugs, unimpressed by consequences, and driven by a short-term hunger for pleasure and oblivion, the participants in these romances barely exchanged names, much less personal details. By the time Mick Durocher described hitting his lover across the nape of the neck with that two-by-four, in a deserted park-and-ride lot not far from his trailer, Joe found himself in the dreariest corner of human behavior in which his job so routinely deposited him, surrounded by the loss, waste, and malice of others.
He loved his job—the people, the puzzles, the pursuit of answers—but this particular insight was always the part he could live without, and without which he couldn’t proceed.
He left his reverie behind as the interview changed topics.
“All right,” he addressed his unhappy guest on the video. “You told me you hit her once or twice—you think just once. What happened then?”
“I got rid of the body.”
Joe shook his head repeatedly. “No, no, no. Mick, just like we been doing. Step by step. What did you do with the two-by-four?”
Durocher sighed. “Christ Almighty. I dropped it. That work?”
“If that’s what you did. We likely to find it there?”
The other man stopped short. “I don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“You leave stuff lying around, it gets stolen.”
“Like a piece of wood in a parking lot?”
The reply was aggressive again. “Yeah, like that.”
Once more, Joe let it be. “About what time was this?”
“Middle of the night. I don’t know. I don’t wear a watch.”
“So, you dropped the piece of wood. Then what?”
“I had to move her.”
“Why?”
Mick stared at him, his mouth slightly open. “What?”
“I asked why,” Joe repeated, explaining, “You’ve told me several times you killed her. You can’t seem to get this confession over fast enough. And yet you went to a lot of trouble to distance yourself from the body. Why?”
“I panicked. I mighta been able to get away with it, if she was found far from my home. I only copped to it after you busted me. It’s not like I showed up and turned myself in.”
“Fair enough,” Joe accommodated him. “So, there you are. Teri’s dead at your feet, you’ve dropped the two-by-four. What next?”
“I tried to figure out what to do with her. That’s when I remembered the Run Around.”
“What’s that?”
“The trail on Bromley. That is where you found her, wasn’t it, at the top?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Joe answered, although his voice betrayed a moment’s confusion. He hadn’t known the mountain’s proprietary name for the location. The police had referred to either the Appalachian or Long Trail. But he had also been thrown by Durocher’s logic, given all the handy, out-of-the-way streams, ditches, and cellar holes between Manchester and Bromley.
Joe kept going. “How did you know about that spot?”
“I worked on Bromley once. Most people have around here, one time or another.”
“Officially?” Joe asked. “Or was it like the job in White River?”
Durocher smiled for the first time. “Like that.”
“How long ago?”
“A few years. I don’t know.”
“Who hired you?”
“He’s gone—quit. I forget anyhow.”
There was a pause before Joe resumed. “Okay, so you figured out where to put her. Why didn’t you just dump her in your truck and take her there?”
Durocher seemed genuinely startled. “In that thing? It’d be tough enough in a four-wheel drive, but that heap can barely handle flat pavement. Plus, it’s busted right now. I’m waitin’ on a part. Nah … I knew how to do it. I just had to figure out the details.”
“Meaning?”
“I had to get a four-wheeler. I knew where one was. Thurley always had a couple, mostly for scouting timber sites. And I knew where he kept the keys. I just had to put the pieces together.”
“By which, you mean the body, the four-wheeler, and the dump site?”
“Yeah. I had to get to where the four-wheeler was.”
“How did you know Thurley?”
“I worked for him, too.”
“Why did that end?”
“He said I stole a couple of chain saws. I didn’t. He was trying to collect on insurance to get new saws. He needed a bad guy. So he fired me to make it look good.”
“How did you reach the four-wheeler?”
“Hitched a ride. Called a buddy and asked him to take me to Thurley’s.” He paused before adding, “Well, not Thurley’s exactly, but close enough to walk there. I didn’t want my buddy to know what was up.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“Sure. Seth Villeneuve. You can ask him.”
“You remember his name?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“It’s just unusual for you,” Joe said. “Is that what happened? Seth drove you there?”
“Yeah.”
“He didn’t ask why?”
“Sure he did. I told him he didn’t wanna know. That was good enough for him.”
“All right. What happened next?”
“I walked up to the site, got the key, took the four-wheeler, and rode back for the body.”
“Which you’d put where in the meantime?”
“By the side of the lot. I covered her with some brush.”
“Brush you cut, or brush that was lying around?”
Again, there was that exasperation. “Lying around.”
“What did it consist of? Old leaves, muck from the ditch, trimmed branches?”
“I don’t know,” he burst out. “Who cares? I just didn’t want her seen, and it was only gonna be for a little while. I think it was branches.”
“So you rode all the way from Thurley’s back home to get the body, then back again to Bromley, then back home one last time, all in the middle of the night, and all using the highway?”
“Right.”
“Anyone see you?”
A second smile, this one sadder. “They must’ve. Here we are.”
Joe placed both forearms on the table and asked, “Speaking of that, didn’t you know about Bromley’s security system? Their cameras?”
Mick’s voice sounded depressed. “I forgot. Till too late.”
“When was that?”
“I saw a camera on the pole, right by the road I used. Guess I knew I was screwed then.”
“Why didn’t you move the body? Or at least return the four-wheeler? You could’ve called your pal to pick you up. That would’ve hidden your tracks better.”
“It didn’t matter,” Durocher replied tiredly. “By the time I saw the camera, I knew it was over. I didn’t mean to kill her. I just got pissed. But a couple of hours later, after all that runnin’ around, and then seeing it’d been a total waste of time, I just didn’t care no more.”
“How do you think Thurley knew it was you that stole the four-wheeler?” Joe asked, pretending he’d never showed Thurley any proof.
Mick didn’t hesitate. “I’d used it before. My truck breaks down a lot. After hitching a ride to the work site once, Bud said I could use the four-wheeler to commute if I was ever ’tween a rock and a hard place for transport. It didn’t last. He’s a jerk that way—later told me I was abusing his generosity and the deal was off. Sooner or later, I woulda been busted by some cop anyhow—that thing doesn’t have plates.”
Joe flexed his shoulders and twisted his neck to ease a crick before asking, “You’re not a violent man, Mick. I checked your record. What made you so angry? And why were you and Teri down the road from your place, in that lot?”
“She was trying to get away.”
“Why? Had you hit her in the trailer
?”
“Yeah.”
“There were no marks on her.”
Durocher swallowed. “I pushed her. She fell onto the sofa.”
“What was the fight about?”
“I don’t know. What’re they ever about? Total bullshit.”
“Was it because she told you she was pregnant?”
Mick stared at him, his back stiffening. “What?”
“She was. Several weeks along.”
“That’s crap.”
“Depending on your viewpoint, that means you killed two people.”
In slow motion, Durocher slid back into a slouch, his hands in his lap, his shoulders slumped. “I don’t wanna talk no more.”
“We still have a lot to cover.”
“You do it. I’m done.”
In the squad room, Joe leaned forward and hit a button on his computer, freezing the picture there. “This actually goes on for another fifteen minutes or so, but with nothing new,” Joe explained. “Impressions?” he added.
A moment’s silence greeted him, followed by Willy saying, “I can’t swear to it, but that may be the biggest crock of shit I ever heard. Pathetic. He didn’t even try making it credible.”
Sammie took that as a given and added in a businesslike tone, “Which means we got to find out who really killed Teri Parker.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Lester Spinney pulled into his driveway in a leafy, middle-class neighborhood north of Springfield’s downtown. He killed the engine and paused a moment to take in the view.
It wasn’t a vista of undulating hills, populated with lush green trees under an azure sky. It was in fact his garage, attached to his modest suburban home, and probably due for a good washing, a coat of paint, or both.
But it was home, had been for a couple of decades, and represented his and his wife, Sue’s, combined efforts to build a life, plant a spiritual flag, and supply a springboard for their kids, Wendy and Dave—the latter of whom seemed already well on his way, working for the local sheriff’s office in law enforcement.
It wasn’t much by the standards of a culture hell-bent on material possessions. But Lester had always been driven by other ambitions. Despite working with a head case like Kunkle, a quasi-obsessive workaholic like Sammie, and an Obi-Wan imitation like Joe, Lester comfortably saw himself as a regular guy. He’d lived in this town all his life, married his high school sweetheart, always been a cop, and was looking forward to enjoying a full career and a long retirement.
A knock on the glass by his head made him jump. His wife was looking at him, smiling but concerned.
“You okay?” she asked as he rolled down his window.
He poked his head out for a kiss. “Yeah. I was just taking in the homestead.”
“Wanna replace it with something spiffier, like a trailer?” she asked, opening his door. “Be easier to maintain.”
He took her in as he got out, trim and comfortably dressed in jeans and a work shirt. “I’m not used to seeing you out of your scrubs. You’re lookin’ good, girl.”
She laughed and wrapped her arms around him, standing on her toes to reach his neck. The man was still surprisingly tall to her. “Get used to it,” she warned him. “The new job’s making me understand what they mean by ‘banker’s hours.’”
“You complaining?” he asked, resting his hands on her back and feeling her warmth beneath the fabric.
“God, no. I’m actually doing things around here. I was out back, laying out the garden, when I heard you drive up.”
He nuzzled her hair. “I noticed you were kinda warm.”
He circled his hands around to cup the sides of her breasts as he went in for a more convincing kiss.
She responded by pushing him against the car with her pelvis. “The neighbors’re gonna enjoy this.”
“More than we do their fights,” he said, his voice slightly muffled. He slipped one hand higher and undid her top button. “The house empty?”
“Funny you should mention that,” she said, breaking away and leading him toward the front door by the hand.
* * *
“So what were you thinking about in the car?” Sue asked him later in bed, daylight still showing through the windows. They’d remained entwined, and were slightly damp with sweat.
“Not this,” he admitted. “I like the fringe benefits of your new employment.”
She had worked as a nurse for almost as many years as he’d been a cop, the majority of them at Springfield’s in-town hospital. But her friend Victoria Garlanda’s offer to join her at Upper Valley Surgical Specialists, a short commute up the interstate, had been too good to ignore.
“I was mulling over a new case,” he told his wife.
Sue propped herself up on one elbow. “The woman they found on Bromley?” she asked.
He rolled his eyes. “Unbelievable,” he said. “The internet saying who did it, too? Might help us out.”
She looked at him questionably. “No, but they’re saying you have the guy in jail. Didn’t you get the memo?”
Lester sighed. “Yes and no. We’re thinking he didn’t do it.”
“Why’d you arrest him, then?” she asked, rolling out of bed to be presentable for their daughter’s return from high school soccer practice. Lester shifted positions to take her in as she moved around the room, collecting her tossed-off clothing. In Lester’s eyes, which he believed professionally objective, Sue remained as desirable and attractive as she’d been when they were first married.
“Looked like a slam dunk,” he said, knowing she would treat everything he said in strictest confidence. “Including some glaring evidence. But his confession was crap. None of us take it seriously, meaning we spent most of the day backtracking through what he said.”
She paused buttoning up her shirt. “What’s that do to the case?”
“Good question,” he allowed. “Finding out who really did the dirty deed’ll be helped if we can prove this fella didn’t.”
“And the only thing you’ve got is that you don’t like his confession?” she asked doubtfully.
Reluctantly, he, too, arose and began getting dressed, although in more casual clothes, like Sue’s. “Remember the Sherlock Holmes story about the dog that didn’t bark?”
“I’ve heard the saying. I wasn’t sure where it came from.”
“Well, I can’t quote it,” he confessed. “But it falls under the category of evidence sometimes being the absence of what you’re expecting to find. With this guy—Mick Durocher—we had the body, pictures of him carrying it to the dump site, a confession, and his claim that he’d known the victim for the last month.”
“Okay,” she said slowly, taking her turn to enjoy watching him.
He caught her look, pulled on a T-shirt, and smiled, giving her another kiss as he opened the bedroom door and ushered her down the hall toward the kitchen.
“But his confession had holes from start to finish.” He continued as they walked. “He said he met a contractor at a bar who set him up with a job in a town where he later met the girl. But he couldn’t remember the man’s name or anything about him, and the bar and the town were across the state from each other. Then he said he used to work at Bromley, except we’d already shown his picture around and got no hits at all, even from the old-timers.”
They reached the kitchen, where he began to automatically prepare himself a cup of coffee while Sue opened the fridge door to find inspiration for dinner. “When he supposedly spilled his guts to Joe,” Lester continued, “he went into how he and the girl had had a fight, and she stormed out, and he caught up to her in a parking lot down the road. Joe asked if he’d hit her—if that’s what got her so worked up. Course he said, ‘Yeah,’ whereupon Joe said there wasn’t a mark on her to show it.”
“You cops are so manipulative,” Sue said from inside the fridge.
“Whatever,” he said. “So, he countered by saying he’d pushed her onto the sofa. First of all, give me a break!” he exclaimed, warming t
o his subject. “Why not say he hit her with a stuffed teddy bear? Second, I saw that sofa. We’re not talking stretch Barcalounger here. It was completely covered with tools, bottles, and other junk. You toss somebody onto that thing, it would leave a mark.”
Sue emerged from her explorations, holding a couple of items. She gave him a leery glance. “That sounds slim.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that,” he said. “But you weren’t there. It just sounded so wonky. I drove back to Manchester Center this afternoon, to check some of it out. No two-by-four, which he said he used to thump her on the head. No pile of branches, which he said he used to hide her while he got a ride to steal the four-wheeler. And no recollections by any neighbors about a noisy fight, a visiting girlfriend, or any guests ever being at his place. According to them—and I mean, all of them—Mr. Durocher might as well be a monk. They’d see him around, working on his heap of a truck, maybe, or just coming and going, but otherwise, not a peep.”
“He friendly, at least?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he answered. “Which is another thing. He didn’t yell at people, never seemed angry. He just kept to himself. Nobody had a bad word to say about him. Not like most short-fuse lady-killers I know.”
She came up to him with the two artifacts she’d extracted from the fridge. “And you know so many, too,” she said sweetly, adding, “Last night’s casserole? Or Tuesday’s meat loaf?”
He hesitated. “Pizza?” he suggested meekly.
She smiled and nodded. “Done,” she said. “But one of these gets eaten tomorrow.”
“Got it. Oh, and I didn’t mention the whole crazy thing about where he dumped the body—out in the open, where anybody could find it, but at the top, where he could be caught on video? Really? After driving up and down the highway on a stolen four-by-four in the middle of the night, with a dead body on the back?” Lester was laughing by now.
“And then,” he added, “since it was late enough, I went to Mick’s favorite watering hole to talk to the bartender as he was opening up. Young man, son of the owner, knew Mick well. There again, a completely different picture from what we were told. Mick said he met both the contractor and the dead girl at bars. Joe asked him specifically about that: ‘Are you a chatty drunk or a recluse?’ Or words to that effect. Mick painted himself as the former—at least enough that he got a job and got laid, both, on two separate occasions, which is more than I ever got back in the day.”
