by Tom Lytes
She set up her phone and police radio on the nightstand, got a glass of water, and lay on her bed. Regional dispatch would send information regarding the most serious 911 calls to her directly, as they had with the discovery of Floyd’s body. Otherwise, routine calls would go to the reciprocating officer in the neighboring town who would cover for her. Peggy checked the police non-emergency line for messages before she relaxed completely, and there were three calls. The first was a prank call by a group of boys that were young enough to sound like girls over the phone. She erased it. The second was Ms. Cuppleworth complaining about fast food wrappers thrown into her flower garden from cars driving along Route 22. Peggy would stop by and talk to her before the week was out. The last incoming call came from one of the new families living off the north branch of the Hoosick River.
Peggy spent her fair share of time in that pretty area of the river, rousting skinny dippers and sunbathers who were under the impression they would have more privacy than they did along the oxbows in the river. The caller tried to be reasonable about their complaint, and the message ended with a great deal of backpedaling and explanations about trying not to waste police time on something trivial.
She returned the call and said, “This is Officer Peggy Whitfield calling you back, regarding the call you made this evening to the police non-emergency number.”
“Oh, what a dear you are to call back.”
“I’d like to hear if you have any more information about the situation down there,” Peggy said. “There will be groups of kids, all summer, going down by the river near you. Occasionally there’ll be adults drugs involved.”
“These were definitely kids, Officer,” she said. “They drove a tan Mercedes and parked off the road a bit. I watched them tiptoe into the woods.”
“Did you say a tan Mercedes? Could it have been cream-colored, kind of ivory?”
“It certainly could have been,” the lady said. “The light was dim.”
“Okay, thank you for letting me know,” Peggy said and hung up.
The description sounded a lot like the boys that ogled her at the post office. Their cream-colored Mercedes was a rare make and color to find in town compared to, say, a white Ford pickup truck. The young men and their poor manners propelled her out of bed after ten restless minutes of trying to think about anything else. Soon, in uniform, she drove her cruiser towards Elm Street, sneaking up to where the Mercedes was likely parked by driving the adjacent side street and cutting over at the last minute.
Peggy spotted the Mercedes in the tall weeds and pulled behind it, darkening her headlights. Rustling in the woods dismissed her plan for stealth, and she panned the wood line with her cruiser’s high-wattage spotlight. The four boys from the post office headed her way in various stages of undress and Peggy guessed they were no longer enjoying the influence of varying amounts of alcohol, from the way they were fumbling with their clothes. As she got out of her squad car, the heavy tips of the Timothy grass bumped against her shins. Her feet would be wet from dew, and the tiny, round, green prickers that grew in abundance this time of year would collect on the fabric of her clothes. Despite them clinging to her socks, she didn’t reach down to itch them.
“Dude, it’s the cops. Todd, you no longer pick what we do at night, ever,” a pantless guy said.
Peggy surmised who Todd was when the tallest one snapped back, “How would I know the FBI would care about us swimming in the river?”
“I am so screwed if my parents hear about this,” another one of them said in a high-pitched voice.
Peggy said, “Stop what you’re doing and quit whining. Freeze, all of you. Todd, you have any identification?”
There was whimpering, but Peggy couldn’t see from which one.
“Yes, ma’am,” Todd said as he began a long and drawn out search through his clothes for a wallet.
“Whose car is the Mercedes?” Peggy asked.
“My Dad’s,” said the boy who’d been worried about his parents.
“It’s illegally parked and causing a traffic hazard,” Peggy said. “I can have it towed to impound and take you boys to the station.”
Todd said, “Oh no,” and looked down at his feet.
“But maybe I’ll let you off with a warning today.” Peggy had her flashlight out now and between that and the cruiser’s spotlight, the young men were struggling to keep their eyes open and dress at the same time. Peggy was fairly certain the caller to the non-emergency police number would be watching the commotion. “What’s this about the FBI?”
Todd seemed to be the vocal one of the group. “We were hanging at the river when these two FBI agents told us to get lost and the asshole…. I mean the one who was really telling us how it is, told us he would arrest us for trespassing. He said they were there for something about an investigation. We did as we were told and came up here. You were waiting for us.”
“Two agents?” Peggy asked.
“Yeah,” Todd said. “There was the assh… I mean, there was the man with the suit. He was about my height with black hair. The other one was this smokin’ hot… I mean, she was an attractive female, and she was wearing black leather clothes, like a music video chick.”
“They were down at that part of the river?” Peggy asked, pointing. There was a spot down there that she knew especially well, having visited it with Finley one unusually warm Sunday night last April.
Todd nodded his head, now having dressed himself with his shirt on inside out.
“Boys,” she said to the four young men, “get the hell out of here and make sure I don’t roust you out here again, understand?”
There were mumbles and “yes ma’am’s” reverberating through the night, lasting about thirty seconds, as the boys rushed to collect their belongings and get in their car.
Peggy said after them, “If I see you in town, you show people respect. You go out of your way to open doors for people. You carry groceries to the car for strangers and do a good job of making your entire generation look mature, grown-up and kind. Do you hear me?”
Todd spoke for all of them as he said, “Yes, ma’am.”
It took a seven-point turn to spin their car around because the tree branches from Norway Maples crowding the shoulder of the road. When they navigated past the police car and found clear road ahead of them, the boys left in a speedy rush of German car engineering coolness, only slightly diminished by an empty pant leg flapping out the rear passenger-side door.
Peggy heard their tires hit the pavement and the sound of the car’s motor diminished until the crickets took back the night. Turning her lights off, she sat with the dark for a few minutes. As expected, when she reached down to itch, there were little burdocks all over her socks, and clinging to her pants and shoelaces too.
Peggy ignored them again and went to the trunk of her car. She found the box from the post office and opened it. As she expected, there was no note, just a pistol wrapped in foam. When she freed it from the packing material, it felt heavy in her hand. She loaded it with bullets from a small wooden crate in the trunk of her cruiser. Closing the tailgate and locking up, she worked her way into the woods, heading west towards the river. Small saplings made the walking tough in the dark, so she took her time.
Peggy knew her destination, though, and soon enough she crept up on the large rock at the edge of the river. The last time she was here, she lay behind it with Fin, eating fruit and drinking wine on a blanket before getting more intimate. From what the boys said, she figured he was there now, with Ms. Bourgeaux. She passed the rock and didn’t veer towards the river but walked parallel to the bank for several hundred yards. When it seemed like the river would continue without interruption, there was a small bridge erected by a developer at the end of the last housing boom. It came over the river and led to a cul-de-sac, complete with electricity and sewer connections that must have cost a fortune to install. Unfortunatel
y for the developer, demand didn’t match his expectations when the real estate market crashed. The numbered four-acre lots featured tall grass growing right up the edge of each unfinished curb cut, rather than the planned spec houses that remained unbuilt.
Beaten grass trails disappeared into lot three, and Peggy remembered Finley telling her last August when she had accompanied him here, “Three is the best number for all things, so we put the car in number three.”
He looked at her meaningfully that night, resting his hand on the small of her back while walking her towards the river. Peggy remembered it vividly as she followed the tire trails into the thick grass and, before too long, came across the cobalt blue GMC Envoy that the Federal Government provided Finley. The doors were locked, and it had been sitting long enough for the hood to feel as cold as the night air. Peggy listened to the forest until she was satisfied that she was alone with the car. She pulled the pistol she’d received in the mail out of her pocket and shot the front right tire. Deafening sound smothered the quiet of the woods. Without hesitation, she shot the front left tire of Finley’s vehicle too. Air escaping under pressure dominated the night as the front of the Envoy sank into the grass. She strolled around to the back of the vehicle and shot out the back tires too. Just to be thorough, she found the full-sized spare strapped to the underneath of the car and put a bullet in that as well.
Peggy didn’t wait to see who might come around to investigate. She headed up the river bank and then east, retracing her steps, not stopping until she was back in the cruiser, driving slowly towards the center of town with the lights off.
After parking the cruiser in her yard, she sat down at her kitchen table and with one hand called Mackey’s Towing. With the other, she picked tiny green burdocks off her shoes, socks and pant legs, and put them in the stale coffee she’d left in a mug on the table over twelve hours ago.
“Yeah,” Joey Mackey said after the call connected.
“Joey, it’s Peg.”
“Watta ya got,” the man said.
“Listen to me,” Peggy said. “Do you still have all those parking tickets you’ve been fighting?”
“You know I do,” Joey said. “It’s a travesty of justice to pick on an honest guy like me. I’m just trying to make a living.”
“Save it. You couldn’t park legally in an empty Wal-Mart parking lot. Listen, you’re going to get a call for a tow. It’ll be an SUV out of the woods down at the failed housing starts. It’s that place by the river.”
“Yeah, okay,” Joey said. “You calling it in?”
“No,” Peggy said. “I just know you’ll get the call. You still have the government contract. Am I right?”
“You’re right. Peg, what’s this about? It’s the middle of the night.”
“If you stall and don’t do the tow for a few days,” Peggy said, “I’ll show up in court when you contest those tickets next month. I’ll put in a good word for you.”
“You’d do that?” Joey asked.
“If you leave that car there for a few days, you bet I will.”
“All right, Peggy,” Joey said. “It’s wet down there this time of year. I’ll be changing the oil in my four-wheel drive wrecker when the call comes in. I’ll go from there.”
“Thanks, Joey,” Peggy said.
“No problem.”
“By the way,” Peggy said. “It’s the FBI that’s going to call.”
“I could care less who calls me. Never have,” Joey said.
“Right,” Peggy said as she hung up the phone.
She went hard at the burdocks with both hands.
9
The murders hit the Bennington papers the next morning, with pictures and several articles dramatizing what was already a pretty incredible story. Peggy’s phone reacted to the breaking news by ringing too much. She started listing calls on a yellow legal pad in two columns as she retrieved messages from voicemail. There were the ones she could let sit, and there were the calls she needed to return right away.
She called back the mayor first and informed him that she was following leads of her own and that the FBI was involved, giving the mayor great peace of mind. If the investigation didn’t go well, he would easily blame the Federal Government. It was a convenient tactic that worked for him given the dynamics of the area’s local politics. The mayor routinely obtained federal money for things that didn’t seem possible, while deflecting any of the area’s shortcomings back to the state or federal government. That strategy and his affable nature produced six consecutive terms, and the continuity he brought to the mayor’s office gave Peggy job stability.
In response to the killing of her brother, the mayor said, “Stay out of the media, take a few personal days if you need them, mourn your brother’s death, Peg, and let the FBI deal with the fallout of the murders, good or bad.”
“I don’t need any time,” Peggy said.
“Suit yourself, but I recommend you take some. You need to mourn. If you don’t, it’s liable to come up some other time in your life. Do the emotions justice and be done with them.”
Peggy ended the call and thought about the mayor’s words. It was good advice under normal circumstances, if she was willing to take it. Mourning her brother’s death would be complicated, though. She killed him, after all.
The SnapChat messages had been relentless and convincing. The threats were so entirely specific and pointed that Peggy began to pay attention, but not until she’d received dozens. And they involved the Warchesters, the threat to them seemed more and more credible. Twice, she had made up her mind to go to Finley with them. Maybe together they could have sorted out who was behind them and quietly resolve the situation. Trusting Finley had appeal, but like a child with a beautiful candle, Peggy was still figuring out how close she could get without getting burned.
Over time, her enthusiasm waned for sharing the Snapchats with Agent Finley. He was too squeaky clean, too honest to relate to Peggy’s problems. After she told him, she imagined she’d be grilled with questions, during which time she’d lie about her relationship with Doyle and omit their connection to Bobby Touro. Doyle would be questioned next. It might even start friendly, Peggy imagined. Doyle was the target of the Snapchats, after all, the guy who was supposed to die. He’d become defensive, anger blowing off him in waves. Out would come the nonsensical political beliefs, the paranoia, and the hate.
The questioning would become more intense as time passed and become an interrogation, possibly, without Doyle noticing the shift. She could picture him overplaying the victim role, using up any sympathy there might be for him in ten seconds. Finley would dial down, and Doyle would give the FBI the whole story of Officer Peggy Whitfield and Bobby Touro. He’d explain how Bobby owned the police force, and how he, Doyle, was trapped between the power of law enforcement and the whims of a crime boss.
The fallout would be certain. Doyle would be killed, and Peggy would be incarcerated or killed on principal. Despite her thinking on the subject, she still almost told Finley about the Snapchats, but kept holding out for a better time to do it. Then, when Floyd ended up dead, she’d been decisive. Doyle had to be killed, and so she did it. It didn’t help Doyle in the moment that he had to be such an unsympathetic character. Or that he’d been making her life hell for the better part of a decade, between abusing her position on the force and mixing her up with Bobby Touro.
She didn’t anticipate that afterwards she would think about the good times they shared growing up. She held onto the idea that maybe killing Doyle would bring her one step closer towards fixing the mess she had made of her life. Now, she’d gone way too far to undo what she’d done, and wondered if she could get on track again, even if she added layers of guilt along the way. She pushed the thoughts out of her head, for now, and went back to her voicemail.
Finley called and wanted to go over the investigation. His message went into the co
lumn on her yellow pad that documented the call; she’d speak with him later. Her Mom called from Florida and Peggy decided to call her back, reaching her on the second ring.
“I’m devastated,” her Mom stated through stifled sobs. “I can’t believe Doyle is dead. And at the greenhouse like that. It’s terrible.”
“It is, Mom,” Peggy replied. “I have to say though, it hasn’t been the same with Doyle for a long time…. But I’m going to miss him.”
Peggy tried to picture her Mom two decades earlier, as she looked holding the screen door open. It was after school and oatmeal cookies filled the plate she held. The breeze blew on her apron and she was almost smiling, with her almond colored refrigerator shiny clean behind her.
That was a long time ago, Peggy thought.
“Are you going to find the killer?” her Mom asked.
“There are a few murders up here I’m working on,” Peggy said.
“Well, I would think you’d find Doyle’s killer. If you have to do all the policeman stuff, one would think the least you could do is find your own brother’s murderer.”
“Yeah, Mom.”
“And if you want to quit all that cops and robbers, you just come down here and we’ll get you some horses.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Peggy said. “I’m doing fine on my own, but I will keep that in mind.”
They ended the call with some pleasantries, and Peggy thought it went pretty well considering they hadn’t spoken in over five years. When her father passed away from a heart attack, her Mom took a weekend trip to Coral Gables and ended up marrying a wealthy man thirty-years her senior. She divorced him after a year or so and repeated the process of a whirlwind courtship, marriage, and divorce a few times. She was on a mission to bring Peggy down to Florida with her, buy her a bunch of plastic surgery she didn’t need, and insert her into the horse scene. Her Mom pined for her to marry a wealthy polo player from the scorecard of the Palm Beach matches, which seemed to Peggy a little like ordering a husband from a menu. Peggy had gotten tired of hearing the same thing every time she talked to her mom and the phone calls gradually slowed.
