Bury the Lead

by Archer Mayor

  “Poor baby,” Sue cooed from across the room.

  “But here’s the kicker: The barkeep said Mick never says a word. Half the time, he doesn’t even order; the bartender just knows to serve him a beer and keep ’em coming. He sits at a corner table, always alone, getting more and more depressed.

  “Oh,” Lester then added, almost spilling his freshly poured coffee in his enthusiasm, “and I forgot. He told Joe that he and the girl went through a case of beer on the night she died. I found a single six-pack of empties in the trailer. There were trash bags in the truck bed, for can deposits, but they were covered in dust kicked up from the road, so they’d been there awhile. You don’t get two people smashed on six beers, especially not if you got a liver like Mick Durocher’s, which’ll probably end up in a museum. Plus, her tox results reported no alcohol in her system at all.”

  “He have any kids?” she asked out of the blue.

  “A daughter. They’re estranged,” he replied. “At least according to one neighbor. Mick mentioned her, but she’s never been by. Why?”

  “Don’t know. Just a mother’s question, I guess. What about the friend who gave him a ride?” she asked. “That sounds worth looking into. ‘Hey, Frank, I need to dump a body—help me out?’ Might be something you’d remember.”

  Lester laughed. “It does, doesn’t it? Why didn’t I think of that?”

  She gave him a warning look. “We could have meat loaf, after all.”

  “No, no. You’ll be glad to know that great minds think alike—in this case, yours and Willy’s. He got that assignment.” Lester checked his watch. “He’s probably dropping in on the man as we speak. We were told he’d be off work about now.”

  * * *

  Seth Villeneuve lived in a section of Manchester Center that proved that even a town with its elitist reputation couldn’t consist entirely of mansions and upscale businesses, regardless of its chamber of commerce’s rosy portrayal.

  However, Willy Kunkle was also not expecting any tar paper shack as he pulled to the curb. Indeed, the six-unit apartment complex in question was outwardly neat and inconspicuous, as tidy in appearance as all the homes on this admittedly backwater street.

  He assessed his surroundings before leaving the car. According to his research, Willy thought Villeneuve should be home. This time slot fit the magic few minutes between when someone returned from work and felt the urge to hit the bars—if so inclined. Willy had looked into Villeneuve’s past record, and knew for a fact that he was.

  But Willy was an old drinker, too, whose recovery was partially based on not forgetting the yearnings and habits of yore—memories that were becoming poisonously corrosive now that his arm had caught fire and he’d started to make a diet of other people’s pain pills.

  He rested the nape of his neck against the car’s headrest for a moment, watching the rearview mirror and the windows out of habit, but not with any focus—barely able to even push his thoughts through the pain long enough to address the task at hand.

  That his well-known watchfulness—honed during years of active military service—was being undermined by this searing distraction only increased his distress. To his way of thinking, such vigilance had kept him alive in combat, and served him well in life. The fact that others often described it as paranoia in no way reduced its effectiveness.

  Until now.

  With a final push of self-will, he straightened, opened his door, and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  Villeneuve’s apartment was on the first floor, a vulnerable location Willy never would have chosen. As he crossed the street, he saw that at least one of its lights was on.

  He was in luck. The door opened to the second knock, revealing a tall, heavy man in a scruffy beard, jeans, and a Grateful Dead T-shirt. He was holding a can of beer.

  “Yeah?” he asked in a neutral voice.

  “You Seth?” Willy asked casually.

  “I know you?”

  Willy showed his badge. “Not yet.”

  Villeneuve stiffened and scowled. “What d’you want?”

  “What d’you have to worry about?” Willy shot back.

  “Nothin’.”

  “Then you won’t have a problem inviting me in.”

  The big man hesitated.

  “Will you,” Willy stated, not as a question.

  “No. I guess not.”

  “Then do it.”

  Villeneuve moved away from the door, leaving it open.

  Willy followed him into a typically messy bachelor’s pad, furnished no doubt by the landlord in Walmart colonial. A grease-stained pizza box was on the coffee table, empty cans were scattered across the floor, commingling with discarded clothes. Dirty glasses, old newspapers, unopened mail, plastic bags, and other domestic fallout decorated the counters and kitchen table. It was essentially a one-room apartment with a small bedroom to one side, beside the bathroom. Willy took most of it in with a single glance.

  He pointed to the sofa. “Sit.”

  His reluctant host complied, asking in a belligerent voice, “What’s wrong with your arm?”

  Willy stood opposite him, looking down. He ignored the question. “How do you know Mick Durocher?”

  “Who?”

  The response was hardly original; the effect of it on Willy was startling and unexpected. As he shifted his weight slightly to reply, an excruciating bolt of pain shot down his arm.

  He disguised its effect by violently kicking aside the coffee table, placing his foot between the other man’s stockinged feet, pulling out his gun, and stabbing it between Villeneuve’s eyes, knocking the man’s head back against the wall behind him.

  “Answer the fucking question,” Willy ordered him, his mouth half open to breathe through the torment, and his vision reverting to an earlier scene, decades ago, when he’d used this same gesture to extract information from an enemy soldier. The vision was so jarring and incongruous, he had to shake his head to beat it back.

  Villeneuve gasped, his hands out to his sides, open in supplication. “Yeah, yeah. I know him. What the fuck, man? Who the hell are you?”

  “Tell me about two nights ago,” Willy said, pushing harder with the gun and trying not to follow his PTSD to its roots born in combat.

  “You’re no cop.”

  Willy drew back the gun, readying to strike Villeneuve across the face. In fact, he was in total agreement, bewildered by the same realization. But who was he right now? And what was he about to do? “Are you stupid?” he shouted. “Answer the question.”

  The terrified man brought his hands in for protection, cupping his own face. “I gave him a ride. That’s all.”

  “Where to?”

  “Up the road, beyond the mountain, on Route 11. Nowhere, man. I dropped him off by the side of the road. That’s what he asked for.”

  Willy repeated his threatening gesture, desperately trying to stave off more flashbacks and return to the present. Villeneuve brought his knees up into a quasi-fetal position. “No, no. Wait. I’m telling the truth.”

  “He call you up?”

  “What? Yeah. Outta nowhere, in the middle of the night. ‘I’m in a jam,’ he says. ‘Ya gotta help me out.’ So I did.”

  Willy started to recover. Villeneuve’s voice and his own began to sound clearer in his head. “What kind of jam?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me. I asked, but he wouldn’t say. Said it was better that way. ‘The less you know, the better,’ he said, and he asked me not to tell nobody. That’s all I was doing. Just helpin’ a friend.”

  Willy considered grilling him harder, hoping it might help him with his journey back to the here and now. But another jolt of pain brought him up short, frightening him with its potential. He was feeling so far outside the modern, hard-won identity he’d been projecting these last years that he had no idea what he might do next to this miserable man.

  “Fuck it,” he said out loud, speaking only to himself.

  He straightened, holstered the gun, and strode tow
ard the door. On a shelf, to the right as he crossed the room, was a half-empty bottle of vodka. He grabbed it as he went by.

  “Hey,” Villeneuve yelled. “Who the fuck you think you are, asshole?”

  Willy stopped at the door and looked back at him, then glanced down at the bottle, there seemingly by magic.

  He dropped it as if it had suddenly caught fire, hearing it thud on the floor as he answered. “Welcome Wagon.”

  He half ran across the street to his car, and drove away before Villeneuve was inspired to look out the window and record his registration.

  The throbbing yielded slightly to the new environment, helping in his recovery. At least he could concentrate on the traffic and manage the wheel with his one hand, aided by the attached knob.

  Of the whole event, the burning discomfort, the trauma-inspired trip down memory lane, even the pressure of his finger on the trigger hadn’t been the most disconcerting, much less the terror he’d instilled in Seth Villeneuve. It was Willy’s instinctive grabbing of that bottle that had shaken him most. The PTSD, the visions of combat-born violence and death, those he was used to from almost nightly flashbacks. But the feel of the heavy, smooth glass bottle in his hand, its contents sloshing gently, promising relief and temporary oblivion—that was something else.

  Despite the odds and everyone’s advice, he’d beaten his dependence alone, without help or guidance from the likes of AA. But this pain, this new and agonizing addition to an old disability—now compounded by a growing reliance on painkillers—had clearly led to a disorienting and stunningly self-destructive act he hadn’t seen coming.

  He was a man plagued by apprehension, which helped fuel his outer show of confidence. He questioned his worth as a father, a mate, a reliable colleague, a worthy member of society. His past lapses and addiction had all contributed to the orchestra in his head, making him no stranger to struggles with uncertainty.

  But seeing that bottle appear magically in his hand, instead of merely sitting temptingly nearby, had shoved it all aside. Alcoholism was the closest of his devils. After putting it behind him so long ago, its leering reappearance—and in such a manner—had been a jarring, telling, deeply emotional blow.

  Willy realized, absolutely, that he was in real trouble.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Bud Thurley had been put on ice in Rutland’s regional correctional facility following his one-man, hang-’em-high vigilante routine at Mick Durocher’s trailer. He’d been arraigned for two felonies, neither of which guaranteed incarceration in this often frustratingly lenient state, despite their having been witnessed by three cops. But he’d drawn a rare by-the-rules judge, and instead, he hadn’t even been granted bail. He had been assigned a public defender, however, who’d agreed to a meeting between Joe and Thurley, having been assured by the AG that it would only benefit his client.

  The setting was a replica of where Joe had spoken earlier to Mick Durocher, like so many other small, square, beige rooms across Vermont, and indeed the country, equipped with metal tables, wall-mounted restraint bars, and a red-eyed camera mounted in one corner.

  Entering in cuffs, Thurley was sporting a predictable, tiresome, and conventional swagger, which looked faintly comical given his short, beer barrel physique. “The fuck do you want?” he asked as he recognized Gunther.

  Joe indicated the chair across from him. “Just to talk, as I’m guessing your lawyer already told you.”

  Thurley didn’t have much choice in the matter, given the agreed-upon terms. But he kept his attitude as he was seated by his escort and attached to the wall, to which Joe didn’t object, and—interestingly—neither did Thurley’s counsel.

  The lawyer was in his late forties, with too-long hair, an awkward way of mis-coordinating his clothes—including a pair of clogs on his feet—and an expression suggesting that he’d rather be elsewhere. Joe got the impression that Thurley scared the man.

  “I don’t got to talk with you. Those’re my rights.”

  Joe ignored him to shake hands with the lawyer, who introduced himself as Caleb Nulty.

  “I’m not here to discuss the other night,” Joe told Thurley, nodding his thanks to the corrections officer, who left them alone.

  “Then I definitely don’t got to talk to you.”

  “You don’t. But as Mr. Nulty no doubt told you, you might want to,” Joe assured him. “It can only be to your benefit.”

  Thurley frowned dramatically, acting like Nulty wasn’t in the room. “How?”

  “It could lighten your charges,” Joe explained. “Right now, you’re facing unlawful trespass, burglary, and aggravated assault.”

  “Burglary?” Thurley burst out. “What the fuck? He stole my stuff.”

  “Yes,” Joe explained evenly, “and you broke into his place uninvited, with a lethal weapon and premeditated intent to harm. Ask him.” He pointed at Nulty, who merely nodded.

  “Altogether,” Joe kept going, “those could cost you forty-eight years in here, or out of state, for that matter, and twenty-two thousand bucks.”

  “That’s crap.”

  “Maybe, but it’s the law, and what you did was witnessed by three police officers. That’s a tough rap to beat.”

  Thurley scowled, but remained silent.

  Nulty at last took the opportunity to say softly, “This meeting will help significantly.”

  Joe suggested, “Help yourself out.”

  “That fucker stole my shit and I only did what anybody would do in my place.”

  “That’s for you to work out with Mr. Nulty and the prosecutor, Bud,” Joe said. “Like I said, I’m not here to discuss that. I want to know about Mick Durocher, which is why what you say might reduce your charges.”

  Thurley crossed his arms, a bad sign in general, but asked nevertheless, “What about him?”

  By his nature, Thurley didn’t strike Joe as someone inclined to cooperate with anyone about anything. It ran against his culture and past experience. But Joe was hoping that in this instance, he also wouldn’t see the harm. It wasn’t like he’d been asked to implicate a buddy or violate an unwritten oath.

  “Go ahead, then,” Bud said tentatively.

  “When did he come work for you?” Joe began, not letting the man deny that he’d ever met Durocher, as he had at their first meeting.

  “I don’t know. It’s not like I keep records of guys like him.”

  “Meaning off-the-books workers?”

  Thurley hesitated, to which Joe added, “It’s not a legal question. Not with what you’re facing. Let me put it another way: When did he stop working for you?”

  Thurley smiled slightly. “Yeah, that is easier. That was just before the snow blew. I always lay people off around then.”

  Joe thought back. “So, this winter, around early December.”

  “Yeah, more or less.”

  “You didn’t lay him off, though. You fired him, for theft.”

  Caleb Nulty looked up nervously, but was cut off by Thurley laughing. “That what he told you? He is such a fool. He tell you why?”

  “You accused him of stealing a couple of chain saws.”

  Thurley remained amused. “Sure did. He was pissed. I even told him it was so I could collect the insurance on ’em. Classic, huh?”

  “I’m not sure—” Nulty began.

  Joe cut him off. “That’s not what you did?”

  “With my deductible? Nothin’ to collect. I was just fuckin’ with him.”

  Thurley suddenly sat forward, as if swapping stories with a pal. Joe half suspected he liked that Joe had been rude to his lawyer. “Stupid bastard couldn’t figure out that I’d have to file a police report. What a moron. And then I’d have to tell ’em I’d been payin’ him off the books.”

  “What did happen to the saws, out of curiosity?” Joe asked.

  “Nothin’!” Thurley exclaimed happily. “I just made it up. I woulda laid him off anyhow, ’cause of the time of year, but this gave me a kick.”

  Joe sh
ook his head in wonder. “Well, he’s a believer.”

  Thurley took that as a compliment, which Joe used to become more conversational. “What was he like, generally? Chatty, quiet? A hard worker, at least?”

  “Nah. Dumb as a box of rocks. Had to tell him everything three times. That’s kinda why I fucked with his head—for fun.”

  “How ’bout during lunch break every day?” Joe persisted. “People shoot the shit, open up a little. Did you get to know him some?”

  “Some,” Thurley admitted.

  “You knew where he lived,” Joe suggested.

  “Yeah, we went drinking a couple of times. He liked the Ski Pole. I think it’s a dump, but it’s what you do to keep your employees happy, right?”

  Joe nodded, thinking Thurley was the last man on earth he’d consult about employee relations. “What did you learn about him?”

  “Nothin’ much. Usual. No wife, kid who won’t talk to him. Life headin’ nowhere. Same ol’, same ol’.”

  “Where’s the kid?” Joe asked.

  “Massachusetts somewhere. He was a real pain in the ass about her. Goin’ on and on about how bad he felt. How he shoulda done better by her. Best thing he ever did was lose her, I bet. Besides, what kid wants a father like him?”

  “You get a name on her?”

  “Nah. Well, maybe, but I don’t remember.”

  “How ’bout an age?”

  “She’s grown. Could be married, even, have one of her own. It’s all pretty vague. We weren’t there to chitchat.”

  “Girlfriend?” Joe continued.

  Thurley laughed again. “Mick? A girlfriend? Jesus, man. You seen him? An inflatable doll would cut her wrists before doin’ him.”

  Joe took out the morgue portrait of Teri Parker and slid it across the table. “What about her?”

  Thurley peered at it with interest, as did Nulty. “She dead?”

  “Yeah.”

  He grinned and looked up. “She kill herself after meeting him?”