The Disposable Man

by Archer Mayor

  Until I received a phone call from Beverly Hillstrom.

  “Lieutenant, I hope you don’t mind my calling—I’m not even sure I’m not breaking a confidentiality of some sort—but I’ve had a couple of visitors I thought you should know about, unless, of course, you sent them yourself.”

  I hesitated a moment, completely at a loss. “No,” I answered slowly, hoping that wouldn’t prompt her to retreat.

  I needn’t have worried. She’d clearly made up her mind before dialing the phone. “Two rather frosty gentlemen in suits came by to look at your John Doe.”

  I sat up straighter in my chair. “Who?”

  “One was from the FBI—named Frazier. The other was introduced as ‘Philpot.’ The implication was that they were a team, but Philpot never showed any identification.”

  “What did they want?”

  “That’s why I called. They didn’t really want anything. Frazier presented the proper paperwork and asked to see the body, but when I did the honors myself, out of pure curiosity, all they did was glance at the man’s face, thank me, and take their leave. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.”

  “I don’t either,” I admitted, “but I’ll try to find out.”

  She sounded surprised. “You know Frazier? I’d never met him. He seemed pleasant enough—a bit formal.”

  “Yeah. He heads the Burlington office. ‘Formal’ isn’t a description I would’ve used, to be honest. He never struck me that way.”

  “I think it was Philpot. I got the impression Frazier was there purely as decoration—to get my door officially open. Maybe he was just feeling uncomfortable.”

  I mulled that over for a moment. “Did you tell them we thought the body was Russian?”

  “I wasn’t overly friendly.”

  That was answer enough. I’d seen her in that mode. “Let me dig around a little. You want to hear the results?”

  I could almost hear her smile over the phone. “Well… ”

  “You got it,” I interpreted, laughing, and hung up.

  My hand still on the receiver, I pondered what Hillstrom had told me, resisting the impulse to call Walter Frazier directly and ask him what the hell was going on. The unannounced presence of the FBI was curious enough, but nobody I knew named Philpot was assigned to either their Burlington or Rutland offices, and he, combined with the already mysterious John Doe, made me want to do some homework before confronting Frazier.

  I picked up the phone and dialed an internal number. “What’s the latest news?” I asked Sammie once she’d answered.

  “Nothing yet.”

  “How ’bout the dailies. Anything there?”

  The dailies were our own internal log—the official diary of everything the department did around the clock, whether it resulted in further action or not.

  There was a pause as Sammie checked my request. “Nothing stands out,” she reported a moment later. “There was an inquiry from the sheriff’s office—it doesn’t say what they were after. Want me to chase it down?”

  “Yeah. I’d like everything checked for the next few days. The FBI’s been sniffing around our pal with the Russian toes. I’d love to find out why.”

  Sammie knew better than to suggest simply calling them up. Despite serious advances in interagency cooperation, skulduggery and exclusion remained time-honored practices. It often paid well to do a little spadework before holding that first conversation.

  “I’ll call you back,” she said instead.

  It took her under ten minutes, and she delivered the news in person, appearing at my door with a satisfied expression. “I guess I know why you’re still the boss.”

  “Oh?”

  “That inquiry from the sheriff was about an abandoned rental car near Stratton Mountain, left parked at the filling station just north of the access road. They’re asking if anyone’s reported it missing. So far, no one has.”

  She let the significance of her last sentence sink in before raising her eyebrows. “Wanna go for a ride?”

  Chapter 4

  I WAITED UNTIL J.P. TYLER pulled his head out of the rental car’s trunk before breaking what I thought had been an extraordinarily gracious silence. Locked into a stuffy, windowless garage to ensure the integrity of a potential crime scene, Sammie and I had watched him powder, scratch, vacuum, and snip at almost every surface the car had to offer, receiving very little information for our patience.

  As Sammie took another surreptitious glance at her oversized watch, however, I thought a break in the pattern was due.

  “So, J.P., what’re we looking at? Good news?”

  He was holding a plastic spray bottle in one hand, and a flashlight rigged with a dark red filter in the other. His expression read of slightly veiled irritation. He was not a man who enjoyed an audience.

  “It’s got promise.”

  He crossed over to a long workbench against the wall and exchanged what he was carrying for some nail scissors and a small evidence envelope. Sammie sighed but kept her peace.

  I did not. J.P. had milked this as much as I was going to let him. Besides, I could tell from his barely perceptible smile that he felt he’d already won the game. He could afford to be magnanimous.

  “So spit it out.”

  He placed the scissors on the car’s bumper. “It’s no home run, but it’s better than what we had. I lifted several fingerprints from the interior, most of which look like they match our John Doe. That would make him the probable renter of the car, in my book. There are others, here and there—kind of in odd places, actually, which make me think they came from someone on the rental company’s cleaning crew. But that’s about it. The rest are smudges, which might’ve come from anyone. The nice thing is that what I got is very clear. Rentals are much better than regular cars that way—almost like clean blackboards, as far as fingerprints are concerned. Once we locate the franchise he got this from, we’ll check their time and personnel files, find out who cleaned it, and see if we can rule out the other prints.”

  He then shrugged. “Unfortunately, that’s about it for the interior. I’ll run the dirt I found on the gas pedal by the crime lab, along with what I vacuumed from the seats, but I don’t expect much. And there was basically nothing else—no candy wrappers, no personal items, not even a road map. And,” he held up a finger, “no luggage. It’s almost like he drove the car a hundred feet and then abandoned it.”

  “Or someone made it look that way,” Sammie added.

  “Or he did himself,” I said, the visitors from the FBI still fresh in my mind.

  They both looked at me.

  I explained. “Nothing else about him seems normal. The suit, the belt knife, the tattoos, even the way he was killed. They’re all pretty weird. Why not the possibility that he cleaned out his own rental car before dumping it? The one thing we haven’t even bothered with so far is figuring out what someone like this was even doing here.”

  Sammie chewed on that for a moment, and then asked J.P., “Was the steering wheel wiped clean?”

  He shook his head dismissively. “No, but it didn’t need to be. Steering wheels are lousy for prints. Everything ends up smudged.”

  He turned toward the trunk again. “Anyhow, none of that’s the really interesting part. I found bloodstains on the carpeting back here.”

  I stood next to him and stared into the dark recesses of the immaculately empty trunk. “A lot?”

  “Enough for analysis. I’ll send some clippings to the lab and have them cross-check the DNA with John Doe’s.”

  I shook my head. “No. What I meant was the ME said his carotid had been cut, that he’d lost enough blood to affect lividity. If all that blood’s not here, it’s got to be somewhere else.”

  J.P. nodded. “So we either have a seriously stained site somewhere, or a blanket or tarp that’s soaked in the stuff.”

  We all stared at the car in silence. Finally—hopefully—I muttered, “Well, that’s something,” although none of us were entirely sure what that wa
s.

  · · ·

  That night, the bedroom was dark and empty. Gail was in her office at the end of the hall, nestled in an oversized armchair and surrounded by the stacks of paperwork that seemed to follow her like doting pets. Not that I was any better. I’d been doing some late-night homework myself.

  I leaned over and kissed her forehead, jostling her reading glasses with my chin.

  “Hey, kiddo,” she said. “Did you get hold of Walter?”

  I’d told her of Walter Frazier’s visit to Hillstrom’s lab. I found a narrow clearing in the middle of a small couch opposite her and settled down. “Yeah. I thought I’d wait till after hours. I figured if the FBI was being coy, maybe he’d share a few secrets off the record. We’ve worked pretty well together before—he doesn’t play the Bureau’s usual game of excluding local law enforcement.”

  She removed her glasses and polished them against her shirtfront. “And did he share?”

  “Oh, yeah—no problem. I could’ve spared myself the cloak-and-dagger. He said it was standard practice for the Bureau to ride shotgun when another federal agency needs to fish in home waters without a license.”

  She stopped polishing and looked at me closely, suddenly caught by the excitement I’d been stifling. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I laughed, still incredulous about my discovery. “Remember Philpot? The guy I told you about? Turns out he’s CIA, dispatched from Boston on orders from Langley.”

  · · ·

  Early the following morning, Ron Klesczewski stepped into my office with a single sheet of paper, which he laid on my desk.

  “Just came in—the Logan Airport branch of that rental car company. We faxed ’em the John Doe photo, which they definitely matched, and they kicked this back. Interesting reading—mostly for what it doesn’t say.”

  I sat forward and peered at the document under the light from my desk lamp. It was a rental application filled out in the name of Boris Malik. “Address: Paris; driver’s license: international, original issue Lebanon; company address: Moscow.”

  I stopped reading and sat back. “Let’s follow this up—push whatever buttons you need to gain access to all passenger lists on international flights arriving at Logan in the three hours before he rented that car.”

  The intercom buzzed and the dispatcher’s voice floated into the room. “Joe, you have a call on three—the caller wouldn’t leave his name.”

  I punched the speakerphone on. “Hello?”

  “Lieutenant Gunther?” The man’s tone was soft, almost sleepy.

  “Yes.”

  “Would you mind taking this call off the loudspeaker?”

  I looked at Ron and motioned to him to pick up the phone on the desk just outside my office. I already had a sneaking suspicion who this might be—or at least where he was calling from.

  At a nod from me, Ron and I lifted our receivers simultaneously. “This better?” I asked.

  “Much—thank you. I assume you either have someone listening in or a tape recorder running. That’s not a problem. I just thought it might be more discreet not to have this conversation broadcast all over the station.”

  I put my feet up on the desk. “What’s on your mind?”

  “My name is Gil Snowden. I’m calling from Virginia about a John Doe you recently discovered.”

  “That reminds me of a guy I met once,” I said. “Years ago—very clean-cut, well spoken, an obvious Ivy Leaguer—who told me he’d gone to college in New Haven. Are you being coy that way, too?”

  He allowed a theatrically embarrassed chuckle, and said, “Okay, I work for the CIA. I was wondering if you’d be interested in having a conversation. It might help you put this case to bed.”

  He left it hanging there. Ron raised his eyebrows at me questioningly.

  “You mean down there?” I asked.

  “It would be friendlier face to face.”

  I tried looking at the possible angles, but had no idea where to start. “I’ll have to get back to you,” I hedged. “I’m not my own boss here.”

  “Not a problem,” Snowden answered smoothly and gave me a phone number. “Call me any time.”

  · · ·

  Tony Brandt swiveled his chair around so he could stare out the window, two fingertips of his right hand just grazing his lower lip. It was at moments like this that I knew he missed his pipe the most.

  “Frazier didn’t tell you anything?”

  “Supposedly, Philpot—if that is his name—didn’t tell him anything. Frazier asked who the guy was, hoping for a little buddy-buddy breach of confidentiality. All he got was a one-liner about how the Agency had been looking for someone, but that our John Doe wasn’t him—that they had no idea who he was.”

  Brandt’s eyes stayed fixed outside. “And you’re not swallowing that.”

  “Not when Snowden tells me he can put the case to bed. They’re obviously reading from two different playbooks—one says to stiff us, and the other to scratch our ears till we roll over and go to sleep.”

  “Then why go to Langley? Won’t they just shovel you more bullshit?”

  I turned both my palms heavenward. “What else have we got? A virtually dry-cleaned body, a near-sterilized car, and not a single murmur from all the inquiries we sent out. Ron told me this morning we’re not even getting crank calls for the picture we put in the papers. That’s a first. I’m not saying Snowden’s going to spell everything out like he’s implying. But I am hoping he’ll let some thing slip.”

  Brandt finally turned back to face me. “We can’t afford to fly you down.”

  · · ·

  I don’t often travel beyond the three states surrounding Vermont, but when I do, I’m amazed at my small world’s insularity. There are just over half a million Vermonters—not quite as many, it seemed, as were crowding the Boston—New York—DC corridor the day I drove south. Like the sole contemplative member of some gigantic herd, I began to wonder if I was even remotely in control of my choice of destinations, or merely being influenced by some massive migratory urge. Trucks, cars, pickups, and upscale four-by-fours by the thousands, along with their apparently transfixed drivers, seemed as drawn by the same irresistible magnetism that was pulling me along.

  And that was just the most immediate contrast. Beyond the traffic was the scenery, slowly changing from farmland to mall to suburb to something that eventually looked like a city without end, punctuated now and then by a sudden upthrust of taller buildings, appearing like some cataclysmic collision between tectonic plates.

  Which may be, in fact, what makes the approach to downtown Washington as unique as it is, at least from the north. Where Hartford, Springfield, New York, Baltimore, and all the rest have recognizable city centers projecting a sense of purpose, DC is essentially flat, lacking the glass-and-steel towers most other urban clusters erect to justify their existence.

  From the outskirts, there is only a gradual sense that the gritty, commercialized, outlying carpet has yielded to something more focused. Trees appear alongside avenues, traffic becomes leavened with buses, taxis, and the occasional limo, and the buildings—increasingly pompous by the mile, if no taller—cease being either residence or business, and become that third, more mysterious creature: the government office, where things indefinable, arcane, and even faintly menacing are allowed full leash.

  I headed west of the city, to a cheap but survivable motel in suburban Arlington that Tony Brandt had recommended. It was within walking distance of a Metro station, and thus all of DC, allowing me to move without the hassle of looking for a parking place.

  This convenience had nothing to do with my trip’s stated goal, of course. CIA headquarters are in Langley, Virginia, northwest of Washington, and far from any subway system. My desire to reach downtown was purely sentimental, for the city, whatever its faults, does one thing remarkably well: it honors the dead, sometimes with admirable emotional flair. From soldiers to politicians to leaders of various causes, all seem to be remembere
d on a sliding scale of tastefulness. My appointment with Snowden wasn’t until the next morning, and by leaving home well before sunrise, I’d purposely given myself enough time to visit two of Washington’s less-touted memorials.

  The air was hot and muggy, even late in the afternoon, so it was with some relief that I dropped off my bag at the motel and immediately sought refuge in the Metro’s air-conditioned depths, bound for Judiciary Square station.

  On my way to pay homage to a few specific dead, I pondered once more the man whose death had stimulated this trip.

  The mystery surrounding most killings, of course, is not in discovering who did it. By and large, that’s as challenging as following a trail of blood from one room to the next, where some distraught friend or family member is found holding the weapon. The mystery is in the why—why this person? Why now? Why this sudden rage?

  If we actually do have a situation where the culprit is not in the immediate vicinity, then we’re usually faced with two alternatives: a series of leads that takes us to someone we can then present to the State’s Attorney, or—on very rare occasions—a dead end that grows more hopeless by the day.

  The investigation I was facing, however, followed neither of those norms. While apparently a dead end, it also seemed to be growing in scope. Invited to a city renowned for its lack of clarity, I had no illusions that the CIA would lift the veil from my eyes. Which left me wondering what I was being drawn into—and why.

  Although quiet, smooth, and remarkably clean—attributes for which the Washington Metro was justifiably famous—the subway ride to Judiciary Square was long and predictable, and by the time I arrived, my mind had been dulled by the blurred succession of trains, stations, and thousands of blank faces sealed behind glass. The familiar discomfort of being in close quarters with so many withdrawn people had begun to envelop me.

  I half fled for the exit, toward fresh air and open space, climbing flight after flight of stairs, dogged by the memory that Washington’s subway system had supposedly been designed to double as a bomb shelter. When I finally reached the foot of the last steep escalator and looked up the sun-bleached exit shaft, I saw the sweltering swatch of flame-blue sky with the same relief I’d felt upon entering the Metro’s air-conditioning earlier.