by Archer Mayor
“I’ve been having my own parent-child issues. Rachel told me that she’s taken in a roommate.”
“Don’t tell me. A boy?”
“No. It’s a girl, but someone she met by pure happenstance. Apparently, she almost ran her down with her car, and now the girl’s moved in.”
“You met her yet?” Joe asked, surprised.
“No. Rachel and I had lunch, which is the first I heard of it. I got a name—Charlotte Collins—and then I did something that will no doubt come back to haunt me. I got hold of Samantha and asked her to check her out. I hope that was all right.”
“Of course it was,” Joe reassured her, although in fact, it wasn’t. Police are not supposed to use their databases for personal reasons, but it’s a hard regulation to enforce. Who’s to know, after all, when a small preemptive inquiry might head off a larger, possibly criminal situation in the making?
“I think you and Samantha are lying through your teeth,” Beverly said, “but I love you for it.”
“I take it Sam hasn’t reported back yet.”
“No. I only screwed up my courage to ask her a couple of hours ago. I had to wrestle with myself about Rachel’s right to privacy first.”
“How did you find Sam, when you had her on the phone?” Joe asked, spurred by Beverly’s revelation. “Any comments about being the boss? Not that you would’ve asked.”
“I didn’t,” she admitted, “but she gave me some insight anyhow. From what I gathered, if she ever aspired to your lofty heights of authority, this assignment is nipping it in the bud.”
“Good Lord,” he said. “So soon? What’s been going on?”
“In a word? Her other half.”
Joe groaned. “I should’ve known. What’s he done now?”
“You’ll have to ask her. And I must stress that she wasn’t complaining, nor did she sound out of her depths. More frustrated than anything else. She also made a comment about having had no idea of the amount of bullshit—her word—that you must deal with every day. She paid you a high compliment by saying that she’d never heard you grumble once about that.”
He was laughing by now. “Damn. She must’ve gotten seriously dumped on. It’s not that bad.”
“Not for you, perhaps, but I think Samantha would beg to differ.”
“Did she mention any cases that might’ve popped up while I’ve been gone?”
“She’s much more professional than that, Joe,” Beverly chastised. “You’ll have to ask her yourself.”
“I know, I know. I haven’t wanted to micromanage, so I’ve left them alone. I have been reading their daily log entries, but that’s all.”
“There is a difference between managing and being supportive, you know.” It wasn’t phrased as a question.
“Point taken, Doctor.”
At that precise moment, the call-waiting function on his phone buzzed, informing him that Sam Martens was calling in.
“Speak of the devil,” he told Beverly. “That’s her ringing me now.”
“Take it, Joe,” Beverly quickly urged him. “She needs to hear your voice.”
“I know the feeling,” he said softly.
“I love you, too,” she replied. “Now, hang up.”
Smiling, he switched over to Sammie. “Is this the big boss?” he asked.
“I hate your job,” Sammie told him.
“I was just chatting with Beverly. I asked her if you were less than thrilled. But you know her—very tactful.”
“I sound like a whiner, though. Sorry. I’ll suck it up. Write it off to the shock of the new.”
“You’re allowed,” he counseled her. “There is an inordinate amount of nitpicking involved. Don’t feel bad. I’m just used to it. You guys trained me well.”
She laughed. “Oh, thanks a lot.”
“Think nothing of it. Is Willy getting under your skin as well? That’s what he tries on me.”
She sounded resigned to fate. “He is who he is. He’s always doing his own thing, which is God knows what. It’s fine when I’m working with him; not so fine when I’m trying to manage him. That’s all.”
Joe had pulled his laptop over from the night table while they’d been speaking, and now opened it up to the secure site they used to file their dailies. “I’ve got the log open,” he said to her, “in case you want to refer to anything. I don’t see Willy mentioned at all.”
“That’s my point. I think he’s working on something in Windsor, but he won’t tell me what.”
Joe was reading ahead. “Lester looks like he’s got something interesting.”
“Might be. He’s just rolling up his sleeves. Sturdy Foster was a big help.”
“I can’t believe he urged us to invite IA to participate.”
“Yeah, well. Say what you will about the state police, they do play by the book.”
“Good for them. I’ll be watching this one with interest. Speaking of playing by the book, Beverly was embarrassed to admit that she’d asked you to check out Rachel’s new roommate.”
Sammie paused before answering, “I gave it a stab.”
Joe was surprised. “Meaning you didn’t find her?”
“She only gave me a name, and I got no hits with that alone. A date of birth might help, especially if I’m to go outside the state system. I just sent her an email asking if she can get me that.”
“Any warning bells go off in your head when she brought the subject up?” Joe asked her in a colleague-to-colleague tone. “Beverly’s obviously concerned, but it does sound like the sort of thing a kid fresh out of dorm life would do.”
“I don’t know,” Sam answered honestly. “It did sound spontaneous enough to be true, but I don’t have much to work with.”
“Okay. Well, do keep an eye on it, if you would. The rationalization can be that the state’s medical examiner is peripherally involved, and we want to maintain her security. That ought to do it.”
“Roger that,” Sam said. “How’re things going out there? Your mom any better?”
“Slow but steady,” he said without going into details. “Thanks for asking.”
She could tell by his phrasing that he wasn’t keen on pursuing the subject. “All right, Joe. Tell her hi from all of us, and take care of yourself. You keeping busy?”
“They’re doing that for me. I help out at PT and at the cognition labs. We’re still settling into a routine.”
“Not much fun, I bet,” she said sympathetically.
“Not much.”
* * *
Sam stared at the phone in her hand, reviewing her conversation with Joe. It wasn’t its contents that were giving her pause. She was fine with that. She was pondering what he’d told her first—that he’d just been talking with Hillstrom.
There was someone to model, she thought. Imperturbable, organized, respected. Maybe she was called the Ice Queen, but usually from people who’d been told to their faces that they’d come up short. Hillstrom didn’t mince words when it came to incompetence.
And she and Joe had been talking about Sam.
Which prompted Sam to make a move she’d usually instinctively avoid: She dialed Hillstrom’s number.
“Samantha?” Beverly answered, reading the display on her phone.
“Call me Sam, please. I’ve always wanted to ask you that. My mom called me Samantha, and it mostly wasn’t ’cause she had something happy to share. I know you like to use full names, though, so if you have to—”
“Of course,” Beverly interrupted her. “Sam is fine. I’m just old-fashioned that way. Were you already able to find out something about Charlotte Collins? That was incredibly fast. I’m not sure that’s good news.”
“I’m sorry, no,” Sam replied, flustered by Hillstrom’s reasonable assumption about why she’d called.
But Beverly’s follow-up removed the awkwardness. Laughing, she said, “Of couse not. I should have known better. I got off the phone with Joe because you were calling in. There’s been no time. Write that off t
o the vagaries of an aging brain.”
As if, Sam thought, imagining that Hillstrom’s brain at a hundred would still be one of the brightest things in a crowded room.
“Tell me how I can help,” Beverly added.
“It’s pretty stupid,” Sam confessed, deciding to forge ahead. “I just gave in to impulse. I have a lot of respect for you, Dr. Hillstrom, and now that you’re with Joe, you’re sort of like family, if you get what I mean. So I was wondering if maybe I could ask you an off-the-wall question.”
“Naturally.”
Sam spoke quickly, wanting to get through this as quickly as possible. “How do you do what you do? Run an office, fight with your bosses, do your job? Even go to the statehouse to argue about funding, or whatever you do with them?”
Beverly laughed gently. “Feeling a little overwhelmed?”
“I guess,” Sam admitted.
“May I ask you something, Sam?”
“Sure.”
“Is there anything that you’re doing now that you haven’t done at one time or another, for example, when Joe’s been out of the office even for a few hours?”
Sam gave that some thought before answering, “Not exactly. I’ve either done it or I’ve seen him do it.”
“Because in a way,” Beverly suggested, “you’ve been in training for this for some time, no?”
“I guess.”
“I don’t think you are overwhelmed, Sam. I think you’re simply on the entry ramp and building up speed. In no time at all, you’ll be traveling at the same rate as the rest of us. We’re just bureaucrats—in the literal sense of the word. We know how to work within a structure of rules and procedures in order to get things done. It simply takes a little practice and self-confidence.
“And keep in mind,” she threw in as a bonus that under normal circumstances she would never have volunteered, “virtually none of us has Mr. Kunkle to contend with.”
Sammie burst out laughing. “No shit, Doc. Oh, Christ … I’m so sorry.”
But Beverly had joined her. “You’re right, Sam. No shit, indeed. Does any of that help?”
“You have no idea,” Sam acknowledged. “I guess I just needed another woman’s opinion.”
“Call anytime, Sam. There is no reason for you to feel alone out there.”
* * *
Willy Kunkle waited until he saw the man he was looking for appear from the tiny Amtrak office. It was cut like a mousehole into the bottom of the austere, multistory rock and cinder block wall that was the back side of the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center—which, incidentally, had once been the train station. Having just been to Windsor’s dispossessed counterpart—now a restaurant—he had no further doubts that the railroad had left its glory days behind.
That was a shame, in his opinion. He’d always loved the train, be it New York’s subway or the interstate version he was anticipating now. Despite his antagonism toward most people-filled environments, he found trains soothingly communal—sealed vessels filled with unrelated, generally quiet strangers, rocketing through space as if on a hopeful shared journey. It didn’t make much sense to him—and he’d heard all the counterarguments—but his fondness for trains, and the unexpected optimism they brought him, had never abated.
He stepped free of the alcove he’d been standing in, out of the light mist that filled the air, and approached his man from the rear. Keely Hooper was an engineer for Amtrak. An affable, easygoing person, he seemed perfectly suited to his job, riding atop a roughly 135-ton giant as if he were on a Sunday drive. On the other hand, Willy imagined, Amtrak probably didn’t have too many train drivers who were twitchy and excitable. At least he hoped not.
“Hey, Keely,” he said from right behind the man’s shoulder.
Hooper smiled lazily as he said, “Trying to get a rise out of me, Kunkle? After you’ve hit a truck or two with one of those things”—he pointed down the track—“it takes a lot more than a creepy, gimpy cop to make you jump.”
Willy laughed as they both took in the northbound locomotive coming into the station, its large headlight burning like a Cyclops’s eye on fire.
“They always make me think of a hippo riding a skateboard,” Willy commented.
“I like that,” Hooper said. “Massive and dainty at the same time. Very good.”
Keely was about to take over the head of the train—as they called it—from another engineer, and continue to St. Albans. He did this on a regular basis, which is why Willy had contacted him to ask if he could hitch a ride to Windsor. The only thing Hooper had asked was whether the request was professional in nature. Willy had assured him it was.
They walked to where the street crossed the tracks, near the flashing lights and barriers, and waited for the fourteen-foot-tall engine to draw abreast of them, like a submarine gliding to a halt. They circled its broad nose, waited for the end-of-shift engineer to descend, and then—following an exchange of greetings—climbed the exterior ladder to the cab.
Hooper motioned his guest to a comfortable chair mounted before the broad front windows on the cab’s left side.
“Ever been up here before?” he asked.
Willy settled in, not bothering to answer. They were almost ten feet apart, before a long counter faced with instruments, screens, levers, knobs, and controls, the majority of which were clustered before Hooper. In his left rearview mirror, Willy could see the distant passengers leaving and boarding the train, mostly oblivious, no doubt, to the complexity of the machine pulling them.
“Lousy weather,” Keely muttered as he laid his hands on the controls.
“Could be raining,” Willy countered.
“Be better if it was. Mist and fog turn the rails into grease. Rain gives you a better grip. That’s called a paradox in your world.”
“That’s what I always say,” Willy kidded him. “So, what do you do about it?”
Hooper touched a raised button to the left of the throttle. “Drop a little sand in front of the drive wheels. It’s not like they haven’t figured most of this out by now.”
Slowly, smoothly, the train pulled out of the station. Willy stared ahead at the parallel strips of steel they were riding, ridiculously skinny, narrow, and far below them. “What were you saying about hitting a truck or two?” he asked.
“Deer, cows, people, trucks, trees, rock slides, you name it,” Hooper said in a matter-of-fact voice. “Glad you asked, in fact. It’s not likely—and I bear witness to that personally—but if something comes up, just do what I do.”
“What’ll you do?” Willy wanted to know.
“Generally, not much. But I might hit the deck.” He motioned to the steel flooring directly behind their chairs. “You never know when something might come through the windshield. If it’s really hairy, I’ll be heading that way.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, toward a narrow metal door mounted in the right-hand corner of the rear wall.
“What’s that?”
“A set of steps and a corridor leading back toward the engine and the first car beyond. Not that you’d make it that far.”
“Jesus, Keely. What’re we talking about?”
“Worst-case scenario? A gas truck at sixty miles an hour.” He waved his hand around his head. “This whole area could fill with flames. It’s not gonna happen, and I’m not pulling your chain. But I thought you should know.”
Willy nodded grimly. “Thanks.”
“Sorry,” Keely said, sounding genuinely contrite. “Didn’t mean to be a buzzkill. You never told me why you wanted to come along.”
“It’s a case I’m working on,” Willy explained, still transfixed by the view of buildings ever more rapidly flashing by, and the sight of a girder bridge looming up. “I’m working on a theory that somebody might’ve been using the train to transport something they shouldn’t’ve been.”
Keely laughed outright. “I’ll guarantee you you’re right. I used to be an assistant conductor back in the day, down south. You’d see these guys—always alone, alwa
ys quiet, always carrying a rucksack they kept on their laps, and always looking a little iffy. They’d ride in the middle of the night, when there was almost nobody on board, and mind their manners. We actually got to know some of them, at least by sight. They were all mules or couriers. They might as well’ve worn signs.”
“Why the train?” Willy asked.
“Cheap, anonymous, pretty reliable, and most of all, no security. Even post–9/11, anybody can bring anything on the train. I think in part word got out about the troopers watching the interstates, too, and pulling people over for pissant violations. No such problem with us. What’s your guy carrying?”
“Maybe electronics,” Willy said. “I’m just starting, so I’m not sure yet. That’s another reason for the hitchhike.”
“You want to talk to the Drum, then. I just drive this thing.” Hooper patted the console affectionately.
“The Drum?”
“The conductor. I was showing off. That’s super old-school. Nobody actually calls them that anymore, but I like it. We all have to march to the sound of the drum. That’s where it comes from; at least I think it does. Anyhow, it’s because the conductor’s in charge of the train, at all times. People think he’s just the schlunk who punches your ticket, but he’s the boss man. The drum. And you’re in luck, ’cause the regular guy’s on today. Al Clay. You’ll like him. A true veteran. He might even know who you’re after.”
“How do I talk to him?”
“He’ll be up in a while,” Keely reassured him. “He kind of treats the cab like his office. You’re actually in his chair, at his desk, so to speak.”
“Should I move?” Willy asked, not wanting to ruffle the very man he was seeking out.
“Nah. Better you stay put, just in case you fall down and sue the railroad. I don’t need the hassle and Al won’t care. He comes and goes anyhow, keeping an eye on the herd. Not that big a deal.”
“What is he, security as well as ticket taker?”
“Train security, yeah. Your kind? As in a cop? Not him. He doesn’t mess with people like you do. As long as they’re minding their manners and not being visibly dangerous, we leave ’em alone. But he keeps track of who’s on board, where they’re going, and he lets them know when their station’s coming up. It’s all on his cell phone, transferred there as soon as the ticket’s purchased—name, destination, where they boarded, the works.”
