by C I Dennis
“How long have you been on the force?”
“This is my third month,” he said. “I was Trooper of the Month in December. Sixty-two moving violations and I broke up two bar fights.”
“Very impressive, trooper,” I said. “Now let me clue you in on this situation. Some very bad guys may want to come kill my brother. If they do, just draw and shoot them.”
“That’s not what we’re supposed to do,” he said. “We have a protocol.”
“If somebody shows up here and you don’t like the looks of him, draw your fucking weapon,” I said. “Trust your instincts.”
He looked at me, and then looked at Junie, lying on the hospital bed with his arms wrapped and crossed over his chest like King Tut.
“I understand,” he said.
*
I badly needed to find Carla. I tried her cell one more time, and it went to voicemail one more time. She was in the hermit crab mode. I only hoped that it was because she’d had the good sense to know that she was in danger and had crawled into a shell somewhere.
I decided to drive down to my mother’s in Barre before driving up to North Hero. Even she could be a target. The roads were now dry, and the BMW cruised effortlessly at 100 mph. If the cops stopped me, I’d call in a favor from Pallmeister. I was in no mood to waste time. I made it in less than half an hour, scaring a few truckers along the way, and pulled into her driveway.
My mother was in the shower, and I waited in her kitchen until she came out, smelling of Yardley soap, which is what she and my father had both always used.
“Vinny? Is everything OK?”
“No, Mom,” I said. “Junie’s in the hospital in Burlington. Somebody smashed his hands.”
“Oh no.”
“I want you to move in with Mrs. Tomaselli for a few days,” I said. “I’ll let you know when it’s OK to come back here.”
“My plants will die.”
“Did you hear what I said? You’re in danger, Mom, and your son is in a hospital bed.”
“I heard you,” she said. “I’m sorry. Things don’t always sink in at my age.”
“We can take the plants,” I said. “Pack up some clothes.”
“What’s happening, Vinny?”
“Somebody is messing with our family,” I said. “I’ll take care of it.”
“They are going to regret it,” she said, her expression changing.
“Damn right,” I said.
*
Sometimes when I’m driving I don’t play the radio, I don’t talk on the phone, and the passing scenery hardly registers. The road is a place where I can go and just Zen out, like when I’m knitting, or walking behind the lawn mower. I start thinking about all kinds of things—some of them bad, like people I’ve hurt or disappointed; some of them good, like the way Yuliana giggled softly in her sleep after we’d made love at the Willard; some totally random, like what I would spend the money on if I won the Megabucks; and some downright evil, like what I would do to Junie’s attacker when I caught him.
It was about an hour and a half drive to North Hero, and the time passed quickly with my musings. The sun doesn’t get very high in January, and it was behind me most of the way, making me squint whenever I caught it in the side-view mirror. The temperature had warmed up again, to just above the freezing mark. In a few weeks the weather would shift to cold nights and warmer days, and the maple sap would begin to run. I thought about Roberto, and the syrup I’d promised him. I hoped he was OK, and I reminded myself to text him and check in when I wasn’t driving.
*
The white Subaru was parked in the driveway but no one answered my knock, and no smoke rose from the chimney. I checked some of the outbuildings and cabins, but no tracks led in or out. The girls were gone—maybe they were in a hotel in Burlington. Carla had said they did that when Tomas periodically kicked them out. I hoped they weren’t together, because I now knew that Ginny was deeply involved—to the point of helping them destroy Junie’s hands and livelihood. It was painful to think about his future, but my mental anguish was nothing like the intense physical pain that he was going to be enduring, once the drugs were taken away. Fingers are full of nerve endings, and if you break them it can be excruciating. Thank God for the drugs, for once.
Tomas’ Audi was not in the garage where I’d seen it the last time. I realized that a whole day had passed since I’d checked the tracker, and wondered again how I could be so sloppy. Perhaps I took after my mother—there was too much going on, and things didn’t always register. I’d check it now. The laptop was in my car, and I booted up the tracking program.
I waited, but nothing happened. Something was wrong with the transmitter—either it had malfunctioned, or Tomas had discovered it. It definitely wasn’t the batteries because they were fresh. I’d learned that lesson a while back.
There were several sets of tracks leading down the slope to the boathouse. Something had been dragged there. As I got closer to the boathouse door I noticed several tiny dark spots on the snow that could have been snow fleas, which you sometimes see jumping across the surface on the warmer days. I bent down to take a closer look.
It was dried blood. Little specks, everywhere.
There was no chainsaw in any of the outbuildings, but there was a maul, which is like a combination of an axe and a sledge hammer. It’s a convenient tool for splitting logs—simpler than driving metal wedges into the wood with a sledge. I took one swing, and the maul pulverized the keypad lock on the boathouse door. On the second swing the door opened.
At first I thought somebody had dropped their parka into the water. The inside of the boathouse was about twenty feet wide by twenty-five long; there was enough room for two big boats, but there were none inside. Instead, I was looking at a pool of unfrozen water, thawed by electric heating elements that were submerged along the side of the wooden docks. At the far corner a light blue parka floated at the surface, and when I went to the end of the dock to retrieve it, I realized that there was a body inside. I grabbed the floating corpse under the arms and lifted it onto the dock, careful not to fall into the icy water myself.
Underneath a wet tangle of blonde hair was the bloated, blue face of Ginny, Carla’s lover.
*
A resident trooper on North Hero was the first on the scene. He’d already been briefed by Pallmeister: he knew my name, and he understood that I was neither a suspect nor dumb enough to foul up the crime scene. I’d left Ginny’s body on the dock and had gone back out to the driveway, stepping in my own tracks. Within thirty minutes a forensic team arrived from St. Albans, and Pallmeister, who had been at Junie’s apartment in Burlington, got to the scene a half hour after they did. Pretty soon the tracks to and from the boathouse looked like there had been a stampede. So much for my careful preservation.
Pallmeister was in the boathouse for a while, and I sat in my car and listened to the radio. Vermont Public Radio has a second, all-classical station, and I was listening to Brahms’ Hungarian Dance Number 5, which reminded me of the background music for the Looney Tunes cartoons that I had watched as a kid. That had been the extent of my classical music education.
The lieutenant emerged from the boathouse and walked up to the BMW. I turned down the music and lowered the window.
“So, who is she?”
“She was my sister’s girlfriend,” I said.
“Where’s your sister?”
“I wish I knew.”
“What do you know about this?”
“I came here to look for them. Junie told me that Ginny—your floater—was the one who talked him into opening his door, then some goon did the dirty work. I don’t know the guy, but I suspect he’s the same one who was with Tomas Schultheiss on the hospital security video. The garbage truck driver.”
“Did she live here?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “House-sitting, or something like that. My sister said it’s owned by some kind of non-profit and they do marine research. They also use it as a
residence for the girls in the au pair program.”
“What au pair program?”
“Schultheiss controls it. I don’t know much about it except I’m pretty sure it’s dirty.”
“What does that mean?”
“I think they’re hookers. Honey-trap girls. I think they’re placed with political VIP’s, and then they run an extortion racket.”
“Is Patton in the loop?”
“Sort of,” I said. “I was just about to call him.”
“You can go if you need to.”
“Thanks,” I said. “If I think of anything I’ve forgotten, I’ll call you.”
“What else did you get from Junie?”
“He’s delirious,” I said. “And scared. They threatened to finish him off if he talks.”
“OK. Where are you going now?”
“I’m going to look for Carla. If you could put out a search, I’d appreciate it. I’ll email you a photo.”
“You got it,” he said, and I rolled up my window and drove back down the long driveway to the road.
*
The phone rang in my pocket just as I was crossing over the Winooski River, approaching Burlington. “Vince?”
“Yes?”
“Rod Quesnel. You’d better come here.”
“Your office?”
“My house. Robinson Parkway, on the hill. Third on the left.”
“I’m maybe ten minutes from there.”
“The sooner the better,” he said, and hung up.
*
My phone’s GPS led me to Rodney Quesnel’s house. It was a 1940s brick colonial in a neighborhood near the University of Vermont, and the driveways were populated with Audis and Saabs, most of them encrusted in overlapping layers of dirty-white frosting from road salt. If you lived in Vermont, you pretty much gave up washing your car until April, then you obsessed about it for a few months, then you gave it up again in November. Rod saw me pull in, and he opened the door.
“You all right, Vince?” he said. He could read my anxiety, and I felt his.
“Not so good. Junie’s hurt, and I’m trying to locate Carla.”
“That’s why I called,” he said. “She’s upstairs. Scared out of her wits. She said she hitchhiked here from North Hero.”
“Seriously?”
“That’s what she said. She showed up at the office looking like a rag doll. I brought her here, gave her some tea, and put her to bed.”
“Thank you. Who knows she’s here?”
“Only my girl at the office.”
“Keep it quiet,” I said. “Can she stay with you for a while?”
“Long as she likes.”
“I’m going upstairs,” I said. I found Carla lying on her side in a four-poster bed, covered up to her shoulders with a patchwork quilt.
“Carla,” I said, and she opened her eyes but didn’t raise her head.
“I ran,” she said. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“From who?”
“Günter,” she said. “Tomas’ man. We never saw him unless something bad was happening.”
I sat down next to her on the bed and put my hand on her shoulder. “Carla—”
“I already know she’s dead.”
“You saw her?”
“No. I ran as soon as he came into the house. I could tell what was going to happen. Ginny screamed, and I was in the back. I don’t think he saw me; I got out the back door and ran for the road. I didn’t even have a coat on.”
“How did you get here?”
“A guy in a van picked me up. He saw me running, and he stopped.”
“Jesus,” I said.
“Somebody was looking out for me,” she said. “The guy in the van actually tried to hit on me. He wanted to take me to a hotel. I said no, and then he apologized and got real embarrassed about it.”
“He took you to Rodney’s?”
“He said he was going to Burlington. He had to park in the Cherry Street garage. I walked around for a while and ended up at Rod’s office.”
“Do you know Günter’s last name?”
“Schramm,” she said. “I had to wire money to him once.”
“Very big guy?”
“Yes. He has a really short haircut, and a big nose that has a lot of veins on it. He speaks with an accent.”
“Carla, I want you to stay here for a few days. No phone calls, no computer. Don’t take any calls from Tomas, or Brooks, or anyone else. Just me, OK?”
“OK,” she said.
“Are you going to be all right?”
“I guess,” she said. She turned her head and looked at the ceiling. “Did you see her?”
“Yes,” I said. “She was in the boathouse.”
“I shouldn’t have run away,” she said. “I loved her.”
“Get some rest,” I said. “I’ll be back.”
*
I called both Pallmeister and Patton from the hospital to give them Günter Schramm’s name and description. They said they’d get back to me, and I put the phone away and worked on Roberto’s hat while I watched Junie sleep. Dr. Kinney, the hand surgeon, had just left. She had told me that the infection was under control now, and there would be no amputation, but that Junie wouldn’t be able to even feed himself for a long time. I asked if they had any psychological counselors, and she said yes, she’d arrange some time with one when he was in better shape. She said that within a day or so they’d move him into a skilled nursing facility; she just wanted to make sure the infection was gone, and they also had to wean him off the IV drugs. I told her about his history with that, and she thanked me, and made some notes.
If it wasn’t for the calming effect of the knitting, I think I might have started picking up furniture and throwing it against the walls. A quiet rage had come over me. My father—my ex-alcoholic, ex-wife-beating father—had somehow drawn his entire family into a snake’s den. Junie was lying there with his hands crushed, Carla was hiding in Rodney Quesnel’s house, and my mother was staying at a neighbor’s, probably terrified. I decided that I needed to end this, fast. It was time for the direct approach. I was going to go knock on the door of the snake den.
*
My mother called me on my cell as I turned off the Stowe exit. I pulled the BMW over and stopped next to a gray snowbank.
“Are you all right, Vinny?”
“Mom, I should be asking you that.”
“I’m OK. Mrs. Tomaselli is cheering me up.”
“I found Carla,” I said. “She’s safe. Her friend Ginny got killed.”
There was a silence on the other end of the line. “I won’t say anything bad about her,” she said. “But she worried me. She was up to something. I worried for Carla.”
“She’ll be safe, Mom. She’s at Rod Quesnel’s.”
“That’s good,” she said. “The one I really worry about is you, Vinny. What’s the matter?”
“Me? You should be worrying about Junie, not me.”
“I just talked with the nurses. I’m going up tomorrow. There’s not much I can do for him, but you I can help. Tell me what it is.”
“I don’t know if I can talk about it,” I said. My mother could read me like the newspaper.
“Who else are you going to talk to? You don’t go to church.”
She was right. “Barbara is pregnant,” I said.
“That’s wonderful,” she said. “Isn’t it?”
“I guess,” I said. “I’m not sure I’m ready to be a father.”
“Vinny. Everybody feels that way. Then you go ahead and it happens, and you never regret having children, not even the difficult ones like your brother.”
“There’s something else,” I said.
“The woman at the wake,” she said, not skipping a beat.
“Yes.”
“She’s very pretty.”
“It’s more than that,” I said.
“Vincent, you’ve only known her for a few days.”
“I know.”
; “Have you told Barbara?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t know if I’m going to tell her.”
“She’ll know,” she said. “You can’t lie to her.”
“I sort of already did.”
“Lying is abuse,” my mother said. “No different from how your father used to hit me. Sometimes it’s worse.”
“No, Mom. Hitting you was totally off limits,” I said.
“He never lied to me,” she said. “He hit me, and I put up with it, and that was a mistake. But if he’d lied to me, I would have thrown him out.”
“I have to go.”
“I want to go back to my house,” she said.
“Not yet,” I said. “I have some things to take care of first.”
*
Patton’s call had gone to voicemail while I was talking to my mom. I called him back. “We found him,” he said. “He was in the Interpol records.”
“That was fast,” I said.
“He’s German,” he said. “He was picked up in France a few years ago for a murder rap, but he got off. Here’s the interesting part.”
“What?”
“He’s never been to this country. No border crossings, no flights, in or out.”
“Are you surprised? I thought that was Tomas’ specialty.”
“Tell me about it. Vince, what can I do here?”
“I need Schultheiss’ address,” I said.
He gave it to me. “Don’t get killed,” he said.
“I’m not planning to.”
“These guys are psycho,” he said. “That boathouse thing was fucked up.”
“When this is done, I’m going to take you out and get you drunk,” I said.
“Please don’t,” he said. “Not unless you want to watch me sing ‘Sweet Caroline’ on the karaoke with my pants off. I’m kind of a liability after a few beers.”
“Thanks for another great visual,” I said.
