by C I Dennis
*
Barbara put Royal back in his little bed and climbed into ours. “You awake?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“What are you thinking about?”
“You,” I said. “Mrs. Tomaselli was right.”
“You mean I have to service you, or you’ll stray?”
I laughed. “No, that’s not what I meant. You weren’t here when she and I were talking.”
“What did she say?”
“She said I needed to worship you.”
“Damn right,” Barbara said. “That woman has a fine head on her shoulders.”
“I do, you know,” I said. “Worship you.”
“Prove it,” she said.
“Right here in my mother’s house?”
“I guess not,” Barbara said. “But as soon as we get home you’d better start worshipping, brother.”
“Hallelujah and amen,” I said.
SATURDAY
I got up before dawn and dressed. I didn’t have any blaze orange clothing, but I figured I could stop on the way and at least get a hat. It wasn’t that I was worried so much that a hunter would shoot me, it was more that I didn’t want to be seen walking around with my rifle and scope looking like a hit man. I also needed to pick up some ammo.
The drive to Enosburg Falls is one of those you-can’t-get-there-from-here journeys that drive GPS units to digital distraction. The shortest route is right through Stowe and then over the Smuggler’s Notch road, but the pass is closed from November to May. It’s just too narrow and twisty to plow when the snow gets deep. Instead, you have to wind all over God’s country to reach it, but the journey was cold and beautiful, and it gave me time to collect my thoughts and firm my resolve. I don’t take killing someone lightly.
I had left a note for Barbara saying I was going out for a few hours, and since she and Royal liked to sleep in, I might make it back not long after they awoke. The whole trip could be a wild goose chase anyway—I had dug up the flimsiest of evidence on Google, even after searching for most of the afternoon when I wasn’t tending to the baby. But there it was, an environmental permit hearing in St. Albans for a 3,000-acre property that somebody wanted to put windmills on. It dated from seven years ago, and the only news articles I could find about the hearing itself said that it was a hotly contested issue. No one wanted big, ugly windmills spoiling the pristine ridgeline, but on the other hand it was the cleanest, most renewable source of power you could find. It would be easy to be both for it and against it.
The permit applicant was referred to as Cebotari Wind Energy, LLC. I’d cross-referenced “Cebotari” on Wikipedia and found that Maria Cebotari was a spectacularly beautiful soprano who died in 1949. She called herself a Romanian, but she was from Moldova. That was part of what made me decide that it was worth a trip to Enosburg Falls, way up in northern Vermont, on a frigid morning, when the smartest deer would be deep in the woods.
The other part was that one of the signers on the permit application for Cebotari Wind Energy LLC was a Mr. R. Meijer of Montreal, Quebec.
*
I stopped at the Bakersfield Store, a few miles south of Enosburg. They had a blaze orange hat, ammunition for my rifle, and just about everything else a person could want. Vermont country stores operate by the maxim that if they don’t have it, you don’t need it. That isn’t a bad philosophy to live by, unless you really enjoy lining up in front of Best Buy the day after Thanksgiving for some must-have device that will be hopelessly obsolete in six months.
“You goin’ deer huntin’ in them sneakers?” the guy behind the counter asked, as I put my items down.
“Nope,” I said. “I’m a hit man.”
“Ha,” he said. “Hope you got a license.”
“Whatever happened to that windmill farm?” I said.
“You mean up to Enosburg?”
“Yep,” I said. I can speak Vermont when prompted.
“It never got built,” he said. “There’s a house on it, instead. Some folks are glad, but I’d just as soon see my power bill go down. Wind’s just a crop, and this is farm country. Don’t know what all the fuss was about.”
“Does the owner allow hunting?”
“Naw, it’s posted,” he said. “Some big deer in there though.”
“You ever met the guy?”
“You sure ask a lot of questions, mister.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“It’s OK.”
“Anyone know his name?”
“Everybody knows everybody up here. That’s Jules Broadbent. English feller. He keeps to himself.”
“Thanks,” I said. Fuck. Jules Broadbent? I was probably wasting my time.
I was less than ten miles from the property, and it was still early. I decided I could at least swing up to the “Broadbent” place and sniff around. If it was a dead end, I’d drive back to my mother’s and keep on Googling.
*
I was four miles out Lost District Road, and the narrow gravel roadway kept getting narrower. With each mile there were more potholes, rocks, and runoff ditches dug diagonally to keep the hard rains from carving impassable trenches into the gravel. I was climbing, and the leafless trees afforded a nice view of farmland to the west. The fresh layer of snow was less than two inches deep, and my Subaru made the only tracks. Nobody had been in or out.
The GPS stopped me at a driveway on the right hand side that climbed another hill through a stand of white birches. It had been well maintained, and the driveway surface appeared smoother than the road that served it. There was no mailbox, no house number, nothing to identify it, except for some faded yellow No Hunting signs that had “Cebotari LLC” written in permanent marker along the bottom. But there was a security camera, hidden high in the birches, that would give a clear view of anyone who entered. I took that for a good sign.
I drove a hundred yards past the driveway to a pull-off, and parked. I got out of the car, shouldered my rifle, put a few rounds in my pocket, and trekked through the woods uphill, avoiding the security camera and the driveway itself. Leaving tracks on it would be like begging to be discovered, and although I might want to draw Tomas, or Rudy, or Jules Broadbent out, I wasn’t ready to announce my presence yet.
*
Doing the Vinny Shuffle uphill, in sneakers, through puckerbrush, birch leaves, and two inches of snow was a mistake. I couldn’t believe how long the climb was, or how slow my progress. I had to stop every five minutes and let my pulse get back to where it didn’t feel like the conga beat in a salsa band. It was possible that I might get a shot off at Tomas Schultheiss, but it was also possible that I might die of a heart attack in the effort.
The sun was now high enough to light up the dirty white bark of the birches, and the woods glowed with its reflection off of the carpeting of snow. There is something about a November landscape that chills the bones and warms the soul simultaneously, and even though my toes had frozen, I felt marvelously, miraculously alive. Hikers stay out of the woods at this time of year; they leave them to the hunters for their annual ritual. My father had taken me out to hunt a few times, when I was old enough to carry a gun and not complain. I never got a deer, but I understand the attraction—when you are out hunting, it could be a thousand years ago or it could be today. You spot your prey, line up the crosshairs, and time stops. I just hoped I’d get a clean shot, and then all this would be over.
I heard a noise just before I reached a clearing at the top of the hill. The morning was calm, with no breeze. You could hear for miles, and the sound was a car coming slowly up the driveway. I crouched to the ground and went still. I hoped I was far enough back from the driveway that the driver wouldn’t see me. Right as I dropped, a big buck dashed out of his hiding place not twenty yards away, and his fluffy white tail flashed as he ran. I counted eight points on the horns, and found myself glad he wasn’t my target; he pranced so beautifully through the brush it would be like shooting a ballerina. The car—a big SUV—passed us, unaware and not slow
ing. When it was beyond me and out of sight, I stood up and continued my slow shuffle until I came to a split rail fence that bordered an open field, with a new-looking house and outbuildings beyond. Mr. Schultheiss, or Meijer, or Broadbent had built himself a very nice spread, with a view that extended for miles in every direction. It would have been a perfect spot for a windmill, except that there wasn’t a breath of wind.
I took a position where I could see the house and kneeled, steadying the rifle in front of me on the fence rail. The scope wasn’t the best, but I could clearly see the doors, windows, and house details. The driver had just parked the SUV in a garage and was lowering the bay door. He turned, and I got a close-up look at his face through the scope. He was a middle-aged man with longish, dark hair and bushy eyebrows, and he paused to light a cigarette. There was something in the stiff way he held himself that gave him away, no matter how much he’d spent on surgery.
It was Tomas.
I chambered a bullet in the rifle and quietly closed the bolt. I wished I’d had time to check the sight, but my father always kept his gear in good shape and I trusted it. My finger tightened around the trigger, and I thought—this is for you, Dad. And for Yuliana, and Junie, and even Ginny, and Brooks and the people I’d never met, good, bad or indifferent. No doubt Tomas had a lot of blood on his hands. This would be like shooting a varmint—a garden pest—and no one would ever know.
I watched him through the scope as he walked toward the house, keeping the crosshairs on his temple. Hold your breath. Squeeze. Even pressure, like my father taught me. Squeeze, you dumb bastard, I told myself as my eyes watered in the cold. Pull the fucking trigger.
I lowered the rifle. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t shoot Günter Schramm then, and I couldn’t kill Tomas Schultheiss now, no matter how evil they were and how much they deserved it.
He disappeared inside.
*
Robert Patton said he had a Special Ops team and that he would mobilize them within minutes. He’d already done some research. Broadbent was a recluse, and had been stopped a few months back at a State Police sobriety check roadblock outside of Enosburg. He blew a point-seven, just under the limit. They decided to detain him anyway, because he was in the company of a sixteen-year-old girl who was not a relation, at two AM. He woke up his attorney, who convinced the cops that the young woman was his au pair, and they let him go, but one of the cops made a note in the log. I gave Patton careful directions and told him that his team needed to watch out.
“You don’t have to remind me,” he said.
“I know,” I said. “I just want him to be caught.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“OK,” I said.
“How come you didn’t shoot him?”
I thought about that before answering. “I think my shooting days are over,” I said.
“Because of the baby?”
“Could be,” I said. “I’ve been doing this a long time.”
“That’s why cops get a pension,” he said. “A lot of guys are done by the time they’re fifty.”
“I might be one of those guys,” I said.
*
I had decided to take the longer but easier route back, via the interstate. My phone buzzed as I was passing through St. Albans. I’d missed a call from Carla. The cell coverage was spotty, so I pulled over and dialed her back.
“What’s up?”
“Rod said I should call you.”
“Why?”
“I got kind of a strange call,” she said. “Where are you?”
“Saint A,” I said.
“Can you stop here? I’m at the house.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’m on the way.”
*
“Where’s Rod?” I asked as she let me in and gave me a peck on the cheek. The inside of the house smelled like weed.
“He works on Saturday mornings,” she said. “They’re closed, but he catches up on paperwork.”
“How’s it going with him?” I said. I hadn’t had much time with her at my mother’s; everyone had been obsessing over Royal.
“OK, I guess,” she said.
“Meaning what?”
“You don’t want to be gay, Vin,” she said.
“It has to be rough sometimes.”
“You’re not kidding. People are so cruel.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing, really. It’s just—I get so tired of, you know, being who I am. It’s such a struggle. Hanging out with Rod seemed so attractive, like I could finally play mom and dad, and be in a straight relationship, and I wouldn’t take any more shit.”
“But it’s not working out.”
“Right,” she said. “He really wants the sex. And I just can’t do it, even though I love him.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m so bad at decisions.”
“Have you talked to him about this?”
“No. I’m afraid to.”
“You need to.”
“I know,” she said.
“Carla…”
“Yes?” she said.
“When was the last time you didn’t smoke dope?”
“About thirty years ago. I quit for a week when I had bronchitis.”
“Our family has a problem with those things,” I said. “Booze, pot, pills.”
“I know,” she said.
“It’s not any easier to make decisions when you’re clean,” I said. “But you can make them. If you stay high, you just keep putting them off.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said.
“Is that why you called?”
“No,” she said. “It was the guy who called, before I called you. It sounded funny. I called Rod, and he said to call you.”
“What did the guy say?”
“He said he had a delivery for me, and I needed to be here, this afternoon, to sign for it. I haven’t ordered anything. It just kind of gave me the creeps.”
“Did he have an accent?”
“Maybe. I couldn’t really tell.”
“Pack a bag,” I said. “We’ll pick up Rod on the way.”
*
Junie had received the same call, but in typical Junie fashion he had told the guy to go fuck himself. He said it sounded like a scam. I stashed the three of them at the Marriott and said I would call as soon as I got the all-clear from Patton. Tomas Schultheiss was back, and he was going after my family.
I called Barbara. “Where were you?” she said.
“Carla’s,” I said. “Giving her love advice.”
“I hope she didn’t listen to you.”
“Barbara, I need you to pack up everything and go to Mrs. Tomaselli’s. Mom too.”
“Vin, what’s going on?”
“I think I might have stirred up a snake.”
“That guy?”
“Yes,” I said.
“How can you do this? You have a son. You’re not even well yet.”
“Please, just go,” I said. “We’ll discuss it later.”
She hung up, and I knew she was angry, but that was not what I was concerned about right now.
*
Robert Patton looked tense in his office chair. “He was gone when they got there,” he said. “They saw the tracks leading out. The tread pattern was the kind of Michelins they use on the new GMCs.”
“It was dark gray. I told you that already, right?”
“Yes. Pallmeister has an unmarked cruiser sitting near your mother’s house. He said he’s going to take a shift himself. We want to get this guy, real bad.”
“I’m heading there next.”
“Stay away from the house,” he said.
“How did he know it was me?” I said. “I didn’t think he saw me.”
“The Special Ops guys think he saw your car tracks and followed them to the pull-off, before he went up the driveway and you saw him. They found boot tracks, coming and going, inside your Subaru’s tracks. So he must
have seen your car, and maybe he ran a plate check somehow.”
“He might have remembered the car,” I said. “I thought I’d parked it well out of sight.”
“He’s a careful bastard,” Patton said. “But he’ll make a mistake soon.”
“We hope,” I said.
“Vince,” he said, “there’s something I need to show you.”
“OK,” I said.
He opened the top drawer of his desk and took out a cellphone with a pink protective cover. I remembered it. It was Yuliana’s.
“It was in the Escalade. You don’t remember?”
“No.”
He turned it on and navigated with his stubby fingers. “I got it released from evidence.”
Patton pushed at the screen and handed the phone to me. It was playing a video, shot at the Hôtel Le St-James; I recognized the fleur-de-lis wallpaper. I also recognized Yuliana Burleigh’s naked body, straddling mine and moving furiously up and down. I turned the video off and tried to hand the phone back to him.
“Keep it,” he said, waving it off.
“Who else has seen this?”
“Nobody who’s going to say anything.”
“Why are you giving it to me?”
“I debated that with myself for a long time,” he said. “I decided if it was me, I’d want to know.”
“Thanks,” I said, but my insides were churning. Yuliana had filmed us making love, with me looking like a dumb-ass john. That was ancient history now, but it still hurt like I’d been punched.
*
I got a cool reception at Mrs. Tomaselli’s. The girls were all sitting at a card table, and my mother and Mrs. Tomaselli were teaching Barbara how to play Canasta. Royal was asleep in his car seat at Barbara’s feet. I looked at her cards from behind. Two of them were jokers, which was an excellent hand and she wore a broad smile. Barbara didn’t have much of a poker face, or a Canasta face for that matter. No one had acknowledged me.
“I’m back,” I said.
“This is like being in prison,” my mother said.
