Proof Positive: A Joe Gunther Novel (Joe Gunther Series)

by Archer Mayor

  Niles raised his eyebrows. “What interrogation school did you attend? I do not.”

  “Were you acquainted with a man known as Neil Watson?”

  “I was.” Niles began to smile.

  “Were you acquainted with a man named Tomasz Bajek?”

  “I was.”

  “Were you present when they were engaged in illegal activities, including some of the above-mentioned events?”

  “I am familiar with the events.”

  “Were you present—?”

  “I don’t recall,” Frank cut him off, now clearly baffled by Joe’s almost disinterested laundry-list style.

  Joe paused before continuing. “You think we don’t know what you’ve been up to?”

  “I have no idea what you think you know.”

  “Why did you ask to speak with us when you’re not willing to say anything?”

  “You haven’t asked me the right questions yet.”

  Joe crossed his legs and made himself more comfortable in the metal chair. “So I’ve been led to believe. What’re the right questions?”

  Niles smiled. “Who am I, for starters.”

  “You’re not Frank Niles?” Joe asked.

  “You’ve run me through the system by now,” Frank replied. “My fingerprints. My DNA, perhaps. It may be a little early for that. Any hits?”

  Joe didn’t answer, although the question was valid. They’d found nothing so far. It explained in part why Joe had put Sam and Les onto questioning Niles, while he and Willy had been digging fruitlessly into his background. “Are you saying you’re working under an assumed identity?”

  “I say what I say, Special Agent Gunther. It’s up to you to do the interpreting—much as you have by putting me in this room, wearing these.” He rattled the handcuffs briefly.

  “What’s that mean? You’re innocent?” Joe asked.

  “What proof do you have that I’m not?”

  Ah, Joe thought, they were getting to the point. “As you know, being familiar with the system, it’s not my job to lay out the substantial evidence that we’ve gathered against you—that’s for the prosecutors to present to a jury later. My job is to help you help yourself in lightening the ton of bricks that’ll fall on you if you don’t cooperate.”

  Niles shook his head slightly. “Nah. Your job is to close this case and not get tainted by the bad smell that’s going to go up when you let me loose without a scratch.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because, other than a sense of moral outrage, you’ve got nothing against me. You have evidence pointing at poor old Neil and pathetic Tommy, and witnesses who’ll tell you about a man in a beard or some guy wearing a ski mask, either whispering or speaking in a funny voice. You’ve even got your own memories of running across a parking lot and being shot at by somebody. But when it comes to fingerprints or reliable witnesses or DNA or anything else, what’ve you got against me?”

  Joe looked disappointed, choosing to play out his role. “You ever hear of the CSI effect?” he asked.

  “As in the TV show?” Frank replied. “I’ve heard that juries are asking prosecutors why the cops didn’t collect epithelials off of a doorknob, or whatever.”

  “That’s it,” Joe agreed. “But it runs both ways. Crooks like you think that unless we have a genetic link to your great-great-grandmother, we can’t throw the book at you. But we’re still putting people in jail based entirely on circumstantial evidence.”

  “People that are underrepresented at trial or lacking anything to barter.”

  Joe cupped his chin, happy to be getting to the crux of the conversation. Sociopaths had a way of looking at the world that was wondrous to people of integrity and character. The effect was like being confronted with a creature—often urbane, bright, and well mannered—but manipulative and evil to an extraordinary degree.

  Like now.

  It wasn’t the kind of company that Joe sought out if he could avoid it.

  “What do you have to barter, Mr. Niles?” he asked this prime example.

  His prisoner’s eyes widened with pleasure. “I thought you’d never get there. Ask yourself, Special Agent Gunther: What’s this all about? All this running around? All these tortures and killings and kidnappings.”

  “We don’t have to ask ourselves that, Frank,” Joe told him. “That’s another common misconception. People think we need to know the why of things before we can arrest you for the how and when. We don’t. We just have to put you at the scene, doing the nasty. If we never find out why you did it, well … too bad.”

  “Except that in this case,” Niles countered, “the ‘why’ of it will give you the puppet master you’re after. We’re not talking philosophy, after all. I’m not the endgame you want—or I shouldn’t be. Who’s pulling the strings? Who’s the one whose needs are costing so many lives? If you don’t want to know that, then you’re not doing your job.”

  Niles sat forward for emphasis. “Ask yourself this, Mr. Gunther: Is throwing the book at me worth letting that man go, who set everything in motion?”

  “Are they mutually exclusive?” Joe asked.

  “That’s the deal I’m offering,” Niles stated. “They either are or you get nothing at all.” He sat back again. “Who’s prosecuting this? I doubt it’s the state’s attorney. This is a federal case now, is it not?”

  “That’s hardly good news for you,” Joe told him. “They have the death penalty. We don’t.”

  Niles made a dismissive gesture. “It doesn’t matter. You go back to that prosecutor, do some more homework. Put me in a hole in the meantime. When you’re ready, we’ll meet again and I’ll give you what you want. Letting me go in the end will only hurt for a while. You’ll get over it.”

  Joe rose without comment, pausing to gaze down at Niles, who took the opportunity to stress, “In time, I’ll barely be a memory.”

  Joe crossed back to the door and placed his hand on the knob. He considered a response, but then abandoned the idea. Gestures were going to speak louder than words with this man, and Joe was about to do his best to guarantee that his next move would be something Niles never forgot.

  At least, he hoped it was.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “How are you, Mr. Gunther?”

  Joe opened his eyes and took in the dark ceiling above him, dully flickering with the nighttime reflections off the lake’s surface below the bedroom window.

  He smiled and turned to face Beverly, who was curled up naked beside him. She’d greeted him at the door an hour earlier, put her finger to her lips for silence, and brought him directly here, where she’d undressed him and made love with him in a more soothing, restorative, and caring manner than he’d thought was possible.

  “I’ve never felt better, Doctor. Thank you so much.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that,” she said. “It’s the least I could do.”

  He chuckled. “Oh?”

  “You’ve returned my peace of mind and given Rachel back her life.”

  He kissed her at the hairline, enjoying the fresh smell she always gave off, and kept his concerns to himself—that in a reasonable world, anyone who would hire Frank and Neil would probably do so again with suitable replacements. For the moment, Rachel had been released to her dorm room and granted her freedom, albeit with a panic button around her neck and a bodyguard to keep her company, but as Joe saw it, this was a temporary reprieve only.

  Not that Beverly didn’t know of the hardware and the protection—and, more important, what they implied. But he was sympathetic to both women’s sense of relief, which Rachel had exhibited by asking if she could return to Ben’s house and resume her documentation of its excavation. Since it remained a crime scene and was therefore populated by police, Joe had been willing to oblige.

  By the same token, the request had reminded him of a fundamental missing link in the entire case: What lay at the root of it all? What had stimulated such carnage? And what, if anything, might they find in
the remains of Ben’s hoard that might explain it?

  And finally, what if they found nothing at all? Especially given the overdue media tsunami that had finally crashed down on their heads. Beginning with the ring of news trucks—from as far away as Boston and Albany—that had encircled the cordoned-off section of Burlington during the hunt for Frank Niles, every office of the VBI had been staked out by reporters ever since. The demands for even a marginal show of progress were heading their way already, from the governor’s office on down.

  As if sharing these same thoughts, Beverly suddenly asked, “What happens, now that you’ve rounded up these two?”

  “That’s what I’ve been discussing with federal prosecutors,” he told her, limiting his response to what he could state with certitude. “All afternoon of back and forth. Frank Niles is offering us a deal: his freedom for the name of the man who hired him. They’re inclined to consider it; I’m inclined to tell him to go to hell.”

  “Sacrificing your capture of the head man?” she asked, her tone at once incredulous and tinged with apprehension for her daughter.

  “No,” he admitted, thinking that he’d have to get used to such emotional responses. “Just the opposite. I’m feeling greedy, given everything Niles has done. By the time I left them tonight, the legal beagles were willing to give me a little time for an experiment. I want to try an end run around Niles—see if I can wipe the smirk off his face, nail him and his boss at the same time, and maybe find out what this is all about.” He propped himself up on an elbow to better make eye contact. “There are two pretty solid presumptions we can make right now: Whoever’s behind this is convinced that Rachel has something worth grabbing her for—and it’s probably something she doesn’t even possess, except they don’t know that till they talk to her. In any case, whatever it is, it’s connected to Ben’s photographs. The trick is to either identify the item or items, or the history behind it, or both, and then use it to pin the tail on the donkey. We do that, we’ll be able to tell Frank Niles to screw himself and his offer.”

  “But you’ve had people studying Ben’s photographs for days,” she protested. “Do you have another angle in mind?”

  He kissed her and smiled, his inner bird dog’s instincts undaunted. “I think I do.”

  * * *

  Peterborough, New Hampshire, is well known to visitors of the southern half of the Granite State. Half the size of Brattleboro and, strictly speaking, containing only about half its population—some three thousand people downtown—Peterborough exudes an appeal well beyond its physical appearance.

  Whatever its charms, however, this time Joe drove through it without pause, aiming toward General Miller Road, in the township’s hilly upper right quadrant. There, he found a split-level home, probably quite old, but built in a style made so popular in the 1970s that it now just looked kitschy.

  He pulled into the short driveway and killed the engine. The oversized painted replica of a Vietnam service ribbon—green and gold and red—nailed over the garage door confirmed the address as belonging to Robert Morgan, as did the Purple Heart commemorative license plate on the Jeep parked ahead.

  Joe slid out from behind the steering wheel, encouraged by the Jeep. He hadn’t called ahead, not wanting to give Morgan time to prepare for his arrival.

  “What do you want?” a woman asked.

  The front door hadn’t opened. He followed the voice to the corner of the house, where he saw a woman dressed in corduroys, boots, and a heavy wool jacket, holding three ice-encrusted split logs against her chest.

  Joe smiled at her. “Sorry to disturb you. I’m looking for Bob.”

  She didn’t move. “Who’re you?”

  Joe approached her. “Can I help carry that? I’m from the police, but I’m not here to cause any trouble—just doing some research.”

  She turned her body slightly away from him, as if protecting her load. “I’m good,” she told him. “You have ID?”

  He pulled out his credentials. “Vermont Bureau of Investigation,” he added.

  “Vermont?” she replied. “You can’t do anything over here.”

  “Not looking to,” he said. “Like I said, I just need some help. Is Bob around?”

  “What do you want to ask him?”

  “With respect, I’d like him to tell you that.”

  She gave him a level stare, considering her response. Fortunately for Joe, she was interrupted by a man appearing behind her, also from around the corner. He had a splitting maul in his hand and was similarly dressed for the outdoors.

  “I’m who you want.”

  His companion gave him a scornful glance, deprived of her role as gatekeeper, and brushed by Gunther on her way to the garage, where he could discern a growing stack of cordwood piled against the far inner wall.

  Morgan watched her leave and gave a small, appreciative nod. “My wife,” he clarified unnecessarily. “Kind of a watchdog.”

  “Can’t knock that,” Joe commented.

  “She came to it the hard way,” Morgan said, tapping the side of his head. “Trying to keep my PTSD under control. Hasn’t been easy.”

  Joe acknowledged the wooden sign over the garage. “So I guessed. One of my colleagues is in the same boat.”

  Morgan grunted softly. “Yeah … Well, what’re you after?”

  “Got a place we could talk?” Joe asked. After the heat from inside his car, he was beginning to feel the cold. Also, he was hoping for a long conversation.

  “Sure.”

  Morgan led the way back to the rear of the house, down a steep slope, toward a large pile of newly split wood. “We got our load in late this year,” he explained. “You know how it is—life always getting in the way. Our daughter had to have some surgery done, so that kind of got us distracted.”

  “She okay?”

  “Oh, yeah. Just one of those things.”

  They came to the building’s lowermost side, and Morgan escorted Joe into a basement workshop that opened onto the yard piled with logs. They both stamped their feet free of snow on the threshold, and opened their coats to the warmth of an ancient but effective cast-iron stove in the corner.

  “Take a load off.” Morgan gestured to a threadbare armchair, one of whose legs consisted of a chunk of two-by-four. He settled onto a much-abused wooden sawhorse, picking up a nearby screwdriver to fiddle with.

  “So, what can I do you for?” he asked, his tone relaxed but his eyes watchful.

  “I’m afraid I need to take you back to the source of your PTSD,” Joe told him frankly. “Specifically, to the Delta, where Ben Kendall was hurt.”

  “Ouch,” Morgan said, before lapsing into thoughtful silence for a few seconds.

  Joe waited for him to find his bearings.

  “Okay,” he said eventually. “Go ahead.”

  “Kendall’s name rings a bell, then?” Joe asked.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “What can you tell me about that day?”

  Morgan let out a heavy sigh. “You know … It was like a ton of others, mostly. Ben getting hurt was really the only unusual thing about it.”

  “How?”

  “On patrol,” he said vaguely. “Shots from a village. Everybody opening up. Happened all the time.”

  “Except that Ben did get hurt,” Joe prompted.

  “Yeah…” Morgan drew out the word slowly.

  “I read in the action report,” Joe continued, “that you were the one who helped evacuate him.”

  “There were others, too. That’s what you did.”

  “How were you made aware that he needed help? You see him fall?”

  “No,” he said quickly. “Nobody did. There were shouts. ‘Man down.’ Something like that. He was near a hooch with that head wound.”

  “Nobody nearby?” Joe asked.

  “No. I mean, there were other guys who came running like I did. But not before.”

  “So what did you think when you came up to him? Did you wonder what had happened? Did you ta
ke cover?”

  “I could see what happened.”

  Joe didn’t say anything, choosing to stare at the man for a few long moments. Morgan dropped his eyes to study the screwdriver in his hands. The absurdity of a so-called combat situation where no one returned fire or took evasive action hung in the air.

  “All right,” Joe finally resumed. “Was Ben conscious when you got to him?”

  “He was alive, but he didn’t say anything.”

  “Tell me what you saw—every detail you can recall.”

  Morgan looked up and made a face. “It was years ago—”

  “And it’s glued in your head like it was yesterday,” Joe cut in. “I’ve been there. I was in combat. What did you see? Not who. What?”

  “He was lying there.”

  “What was around him?”

  “His stuff. A bag, his cameras. His helmet.”

  “A hole in it?”

  “Yeah. In the front—same place he had the wound.”

  “The cameras broken?”

  “Nope. But both of them were open.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Morgan shrugged. “Open. I don’t know. Like when you take the rolls of film out. They were in two pieces, but not busted. Nikons. I’d seen Ben and the other photographers do it a bunch of times. They sort of separated the bottom from the rest to remove the film. Both cameras were that way.”

  “Were there any rolls?”

  “No.”

  Something about his tone, or his expression, made Joe press harder. It felt as if Morgan had caught himself revealing too much, and was wishing that real life came with a rewind button. “But there was something else. Was there film anywhere at all?”

  Morgan put the screwdriver down impatiently, then immediately retrieved it. “No.”

  “Why’re you saying that, Bob? You’re leaving something out.”

  They stared at each other for a couple of seconds before Joe asked, “What really happened?” For the first time in this convoluted case, he was feeling like a dog at last on the right scent.