He nodded, reaching for a thick folder. “Tharp’s does. I remembered it ’cause it sounded funny.” He started pawing through sheets of paper, pausing now and then to read. “Here it is,” he finally said. “Janice Litchfield mentioned him as a hanger-on. Nothing beyond that.”
“See if you can get her in here.”
· · ·
Janice Litchfield had regained her composure since our last conversation. Now she was as brassy as the hardware puncturing what body parts I could see.
This time, I put her in the interrogation box.
“Why’d you pull me in again?” she demanded, sitting on a metal chair as if she’d been dropped from ten feet.
I was walking back and forth before her. “We were wondering if you’d thought of anything new that might help us nail Brenda’s killer.”
She began studying her bitten, flaking nails again. “I told you what I know.”
“You gave us some names. That was a start. You think of any others?”
“No.”
“You said you and Brenda were involved in some pretty risky things, any of which could’ve gone sour. Anything there that might’ve gotten her killed?”
“No.”
I stopped pacing. “You were also worried you might end up the same way.”
She flared up slightly. “She was stupid. I always had more brains than her. She was asking for it.”
“How?”
“Shootin’ her mouth off. Dissin’ the wrong people.”
I pulled a piece of paper from my pocket and consulted it. “Which people?”
“Just people.” She was sullen.
“Like Jamie Good?”
“Sure. For one.”
I picked a name at random, although a familiar one. “Billy Conyer?”
“She liked Billy.”
“Walter Freund?”
“Yeah.”
“Frankie Harris?”
She looked up. “Frankie’s an old guy. He’s no threat.”
“They saw a lot of each other. Maybe she pissed him off somehow.”
She just shook her head.
“Owen Tharp?”
This time she laughed. “Owen? You gotta be kidding. Owen’s like a puppy dog, hanging around, diving for scraps. He wouldn’t scare nobody.”
“He know Brenda?”
She shrugged. “Everybody knows everybody.”
“They do drugs together? Have sex?”
“Owen’s always broke. That’s why he lives with that old bitch.”
“Judith Giroux?”
“Whatever.”
“You seen him around lately?”
She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Why’re you so interested in Owen? He’s like nowhere.”
“Maybe, but you’re not the only one being brought in for questioning, Janice. We’re talking to everybody, from the top dogs to the nobodies.”
“Well, you’re starting with a nobody there.”
“So when did you last see him?”
“I don’t know. A few days. He’s around, though. Ask Walter, if you’re so interested. He’s more Walter’s pet than anyone’s.”
I moved on. “You ever see Owen get mad?”
Janice’s nervous hands became still.
“You have, haven’t you?” I pressed.
“Sure.” But her surliness had lost its edge.
“Tell me about it.”
She looked up with something like wonder. “It was weird—like he flipped out. Walter was raggin’ him, like we all do. Owen invites it, the way he is. But this time he blew up. Came at Walter like he was going to kill him.”
“How?”
There was silence in the small bare room. I thought suddenly of the mantle of thick snow that was slowly enveloping the building, smothering everything beneath it.
“He grabbed a pen,” she finally said quietly. “Tried to use it like a knife.”
“What did Walter do?”
“He laughed.”
· · ·
Brookside Terrace is a combination low-cost housing development/ condominium complex, which looks about as awkward as it sounds. Consisting of a scattering of brown-painted wooden structures reminiscent of either a run-down motel or a cheap ski-slope apartment building, it is tucked into a hillside and pinned there by the Whetstone Brook, which cuts across its front on its way through Brattleboro. Paralleling the water along the opposite bank is Route 9—variously called High Street, Western Avenue, and the Marlboro Road. As Vermont’s only southern, quasi-straight, horizontal traffic corridor, Route 9 is at the best of times crowded and, during rush hours, a nightmare. Thus the cheaper units at Brookside Terrace get the combined joys of little sunlight, limited access, long waits at the stop sign, and the pleasant, soothing, year-round sound of rushing water—punctuated by squealing tires and the roar of traffic.
Not that there was much of that when we approached the area in the early afternoon. The snow had continued unabated, and although the plows were beginning to catch up, at least on the primary thruways, traffic had pretty much called it quits. The snow’s one-dimensional whitewash had reduced visibility like an offshore fog bank, making distinguishing a car from the road beneath it a challenge.
There were three of us—Ron, myself, and Sammie, who had appeared at the office two hours late. I’d also arranged to have a patrol car with two uniformed officers stand by at the gas station down the road, despite the storm-related workload having gotten so bad that an extra shift had been called on duty.
Owen Tharp and his aunt lived in a long, low unit of apartments right by the edge of the brook—the first building to the left off the access bridge. I’d had Sammie telephone not fifteen minutes earlier, pretending she was from SRS, to talk to Owen about some made-up bureaucratic detail. Judith had answered first, confirming they were both at home, and Sammie had kept it brief and innocuous, closing with a comment about the weather. Owen had complained about the long-range buses being canceled that day.
Which had told us to either move fast or miss him altogether.
Ron and I took the front door of the apartment, sending Sam around back to keep an eye on the rear.
I knocked, standing to one side out of habit, Ron across from me. We didn’t have our guns out. Most arrests, especially of people with Owen’s largely meek reputation, are fairly dull affairs—low-key conversations ending with handcuffs and a depressing walk to the back of a car.
This one didn’t start out any differently. After a minute’s wait, the door handle turned, and we were greeted by a thin woman with her hair tied back, her face sharp and unpleasant, a cigarette between her fingers.
“What do you want?”
I let Ron do the talking. “Police, ma’am. Is Owen Tharp here?”
“Why?” she asked querulously, stepping more fully into the door.
That was all I needed. As Ron answered, “We have a warrant for his arrest,” I pushed by Judith Giroux and entered the dark apartment, closely followed by Ron.
“Hey,” Giroux yelled, grasping at the wall for balance, and knocking over a lamp. “You can’t do that.” And in a louder voice, “Run, Owen, run.”
We both heard a muffled crash from the back and charged in that direction, cautious at the doorways, guns now out. I keyed the mike of my portable radio and shouted at Sammie to watch out.
There was no response.
We entered a messy bedroom, slowly filling with freezing air from a wide-open window.
“Damn,” I muttered, and carefully poked my head outside.
Sammie was lying sprawled on her back, half in the water, nearby but barely visible in the unremitting snowfall.
“Sammie. You okay?”
She waved at me. “He went downstream. I slipped on a fucking rock.”
She fell again trying to stand.
I gave Ron a boost out the window and then joined him at the water’s edge. Whetstone Brook ran year-around, violently in spots and—especially downstream—sometimes betwe
en steep, ravine-like banks.
“Was he armed?” I asked Sammie as she joined us, soaked from the waist down.
“Not that I saw.” Her face was flushed with fury.
“All units,” I radioed. “Suspect has fled east along Whetstone Brook. Unknown whether he’s armed or not. Approach with extreme caution.”
Sammie was no longer interested in caution. Drenched and probably freezing already, she plunged off in pursuit down the middle of the stream bed, staggering on the uncertain footing.
Ron glanced at me quickly. I let out a sigh of frustration. “Guess we better keep her company.”
Our progress was predictably slow. Blinded by snow, deafened by the water’s roar, and confused by the hidden terrain, we tried keeping to the bank, stumbling every few feet, bruising our freezing hands on the slippery rocks. It quickly became impossible to differentiate between solid ground and water under the snow’s crust, and we both were soon wet to the knees, beginning a hypothermic descent that our bodies could only fight for so long. Sammie was probably already totally numb, but I wasn’t counting on that to slow her down.
As we went, I kept updating dispatch by radio, suggesting places where intercept teams could get to the water. But the weather, the traffic, and the number of accidents around town were limiting our stretched resources. The backup unit I’d had standing by had been notified too late to be of immediate use, and while they were now driving east to head off Owen farther downstream, I wasn’t sure they’d be successful, blue lights or not.
The terrain got worse. The banks steepened and the stream bed narrowed, forcing us deeper into the faster-running water. Now all three of us were soaked, and the initial sting of cold had become a violent throbbing, making numbness a blessing and frostbite a real possibility. I’d waited too long to call off what never should have started in the first place.
Complicating this, however, was Sammie. Barely visible ahead of us, making no pretense of fighting the rapids, she’d allowed herself finally to be simply swept along. Either because of the cold or her own hardheadedness, she’d gone beyond being rational.
“Ron,” I shouted over the water’s roar. “We got to get her out. To hell with Owen.”
Ron nodded and, to my utter astonishment, plunged headlong into the water, like a lifeguard into the summer surf.
We had struggled to just shy of the Williams Street bend in the stream, where an abrupt drop-off creates a quasi-chasm in the midst of a rocky, tree-choked glen. Although this spot is near the heart of one of the largest towns in Vermont, there was no evidence anywhere that we were within a hundred miles of civilization.
Except, just before the falls, for a narrow, low-slung metal trestle carrying a six-inch sewage pipe from one bank to the other.
As I gingerly drew within sight of it, unwilling to yield to the water’s rage as had my colleagues, I saw them both—along with Owen Tharp—draped or pinned against the overpass like bugs on a windshield wiper. Sammie had one arm hooked through the metalwork and the other arm around Owen’s neck, while Ron was keeping both of them from being carried over the edge to the rocks below. I updated the others by radio and, moving like an awkward, antiquated robot, tried to help Ron keep everyone alive.
12
THE THREE OF US WERE IN SAMMIE’S HOSITAL ROOM the next morning when Willy Kunkle walked in. We’d been kept overnight for observation—including Owen, under guard—to assure that our cold-water adventure hadn’t led to more than a craving for lots of hot coffee. Fortunately, it had not.
“Don’t you look cute,” Willy observed of our hospital gowns. “Sam, climb out of bed so I can see if that’s one of those tie-across-the-back models.”
Sammie still hadn’t regained her sense of humor since losing Tharp to a slippery stone. “Up yours.”
“How’s Owen?” I asked diplomatically.
Willy was unusually cheerful. “He’s fine, and getting VIP treatment, since he totally spilled his guts. He’s already in our lockup, waiting for arraignment.”
“He confessed?” Ron asked.
“Yup. Last night, after the docs let us at him. Described where he left the body, the knife he used, and where he threw it by the side of the road. J.P. and me checked his apartment and gave Judith the third degree—there’s a lovely woman, by the way—and she even handed over some bloody clothes she was going to get rid of.”
“Anything fitting the knee-print we found next to Brenda’s body?” I asked.
“Don’t know. J.P.’s hoarding it. All I saw was a jacket with a smeared cuff and a shoe with a couple of drops on it. Looked like Owen must’ve split before it got real messy.”
“The arraignment’s this afternoon?” Ron asked, always conscious of deadlines. “You been able to get the paperwork ready?”
Kunkle looked at him scornfully. “Scared you might be replaced, Ronnie? Actually, it was so easy I wonder why you make such a big deal out of it all the time. Job security, I guess.”
I cut him off as Ron’s face reddened. “Why did he do it?”
Willy perched on the edge of Sammie’s bed. “That part’s a little melodramatic, but then I think Owen’s a few bricks shy of a load. He says he had a girlfriend a couple of years back who died of some bad dope. He didn’t know it was Brenda then that supplied her, but when he found out, he got good and hopped up and went over to confront her. She told him to pound sand and he sliced-’n’-diced her—just like that.”
“Who told him it was Brenda?”
“No one. He said he discovered it for himself—that she’d poisoned the stuff.”
“He know about the kid in the back room?”
“Negative. Not that it matters. It’s a two-for-one sale, according to the SA—Felony Murder Rule.”
Thinking of the election later in the year, I asked, “The SA going to handle it himself?”
Willy smiled. “Nope. Your love-mate is, with him looking over her shoulder, of course.”
Gail?” I blurted out.
“Unless you switched partners. Derby wants to spend his quality time rallying votes. Rumor has it James Dunn wants the office back in November. Total bullshit, of course—everyone hates Dunn—but Derby’s got sweaty palms. Plus, he thinks if he lets one of his deputies handle it, it’ll show off the office’s depth—he’s fighting the image of being a headline hog as well as a micro-manager, just like Dunn used to be. Looks like the public defender’s office is going to assign Reggie McNeil from their side. Should be fun for Gail, given Reggie’s habits.”
McNeil had made a reputation of using anything and everything in defense of his clients—sometimes to the point of getting his wrist slapped by his boss, the defender general. This zeal did not endear him to anyone I knew in law enforcement.
“How do you know McNeil’s got it? Wouldn’t that happen at the arraignment?” I asked, surprised.
“Right after Owen fessed up”—Willy gave Ron a meaningful look—“which was right after we Mirandized him nice and legal—I guess he suddenly got cold feet. Maybe it was hearing himself out loud or something. Anyhow, he clammed up—a little late—and said he wanted a lawyer. Asked for McNeil personally. Not that that scum-bag isn’t a household name to every loser in town.”
“McNeil is such a jerk…” Sammie began joining in, but came to a full stop, her mouth half open and her eyes on the door.
We all followed her gaze and saw a tall, slim man with long dark hair, dressed in a thigh-length leather jacket. He had high cheekbones, a permanent five o’clock shadow, a strong chin, and penetrating eyes. To my jaundiced eye, he looked like a wannabe fashion model, touched by just enough cheapness to ruin the effect.
“Andy,” Sammie said in a slightly strangled voice.
Andy Padgett looked uncomfortably at the bunch of us, obviously caught unawares by our presence.
“Hey, babe,” he said cautiously, his voice muted.
Willy turned to Sammie in mock outrage. “You never let me call you that. How’s he get away with it?”
Sammie’s lips barely moved. “Fuck off, Willy.”
I got up and crossed over to shake Padgett’s hand, hoping to dilute the tension. Gail and Ron’s wife had dropped by to see us the night before, and we’d all had a good time. I felt badly now that Sammie’s chance at the same kind of comfort was being ruined. “Hi. I’m Joe Gunther. Glad to meet you. This is Ron Klesczewski. Willy Kunkle I think you already know.”
Padgett’s grip was brief. His eyes only briefly met mine. “Yeah. Hi.”
“Sammie’s said good things about you.”
He took a half step backward, still speaking in a murmur, obviously not buying my patter. “Great. She’s okay. Look, I don’t want to interrupt.” He raised his hand to her. “I’ll catch you later.”
Willy laughed. “Well, warm your hands up ahead of time. She’s a little frigid right now.” Sammie punched him in his bad shoulder. “You are such an asshole. I’ll see you at home, Andy. Thanks for coming.”
Padgett vanished as if a rope had yanked him clear of the doorway.
“Must’ve been late for another poker game,” Willy said, relentless to the end.
Sammie pushed him clear off the bed. “Get out, Willy. What the hell did he ever do to you?”
Willy moved to the door. Under the smirk, he was simmering. “Nothing yet. He better hope he doesn’t, either.”
“Jesus,” she exclaimed, but her target had already left.
A doctor filled the doorway instead, stopping dead in his tracks at the assembled hostile stares. He glanced at Kunkle’s departing back, invisible to us, and then asked generally, “Is everything all right?”
For some reason, we all looked at Sammie.
She was pale with rage. “Not hardly.”
“So—good news?” I asked him hopefully, my voice sounding loud in the quiet room.
He took my cue, ignoring the tension, and allowed that since we’d apparently survived the night with no obvious ill effects, we were free to go.
But back in the room I’d shared with Ron, changing into my clothes and preparing to leave, I found my thoughts weren’t on the weird three-way tug-of-war between Sam, Willy, and Andy Padgett. That, as I saw it, had been something they’d have to work out on their own. Instead, I was grappling with the abrupt end of an intense investigation, made all the more dramatic by Owen’s unexpected confession.
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