Proof Positive: A Joe Gunther Novel (Joe Gunther Series) (2 page)

CHAPTER TWO

“Vermont Bureau of Investigation. Joe Gunther speaking.”

“Hi, Joe.”

At the sound of Beverly Hillstrom’s voice, Gunther removed his feet from the windowsill and turned around to face the empty squad room, resting his elbows on his desktop and cradling the phone more comfortably. Hillstrom was Vermont’s medical examiner—tough, disciplined, and scrupulously thorough. More important to Joe, she had recently become his sweetheart—if, for the time being, a quietly acknowledged one.

“Hey, there,” he said. “How’s the light of my life?”

“I like that,” she laughed. “You’re sounding sporty.”

“You interested?” he asked. “I could get there in two hours.”

“My sofa has recovered from the last time,” she told him. “But I’m not sure I want to explain a locked office door in the middle of the day.”

“Ah. No guts,” he accused her. In the minute pause that followed—and to move them off the subject smoothly—he added, “But you probably didn’t call for that, did you? Have we sent you someone I don’t know about?”

Her voice took on the professional tone he knew so well. They’d been a romantic couple for a short time, but colleagues for decades.

“It came in as a natural or an accidental,” she explained. “I’m still determining that—probably a cardiac event brought on by the stress of an accident. But it’s not a criminal case. At least, not based on state police findings.”

“Oh?” he prompted her, his interest piqued. Beverly was not one to make chatty shoptalk. Something was afoot. “Where did this come from?”

“Your neck of the woods. Dummerston.”

That was near enough, being the township just north of Brattleboro, where Joe’s office was located.

“You have suspicions?” he asked.

She hesitated. “I do,” she finally conceded. “And there’s a complication. The decedent is related to me.”

That caught him by surprise. “Oh, Beverly. What happened?”

“His name is Benjamin Kendall. We were first cousins. He was found at home, under a pile of personal effects, and at first, it seemed reasonable that he’d fallen prey to a domestic mishap.”

Joe was used to her almost antique English, but here, it was the substance rather than the delivery that caught his attention. “Reasonable?” he countered. “That a pile of … what? Personal effects?
Fell
on him?”

“He was a hoarder,” she elaborated. “It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. His environment was literally a series of precarious stacks and archways—books, newspapers, decades’-worth of randomly acquired…” Here, even she appeared at a loss for words, and fell back upon, “Stuff.”

Trusting that the story would gain clarity, Joe moved along. “You’re thinking that’s not what happened?”

“He exhibited multiple nonlethal injuries,” she went on. “All of them more or less consistent with being pinned under a heavy weight. But it had been days, and his tissues had degenerated, making things harder to sort out. My deputy did the autopsy, per protocol, but I couldn’t not come in for a consultation. That being said, a cardiac event seems like the most credible finding—his heart was in poor condition. But it’s just not sitting right with me. We’re leaving it open at least until the toxicology comes back.”

She stopped there, although he knew that she had more to tell. Beverly Hillstrom’s autopsies, even if conducted by a deputy, were not going to be anything but in-depth analyses. But she was on tricky ground. This was a Vermont State Police investigation. Joe was VBI—also a state agency, but restricted to major cases—and generally activated only by direct invitation from the lead investigator, which was not Beverly.

He tried easing her distress. “Beverly. I’m really sorry this happened. I didn’t even know you had a relative in Vermont, aside from your daughter in college. I thought you were a Philly girl. If you’d like, I’d be happy to call whoever caught this case, just to delicately check his homework.”

Her relief was palpable. “Oh, Joe. Thanks so much. I wasn’t sure what to do. Ben ended up in Vermont because of me, and I took care of him as much as he’d let me, which wasn’t much. To be honest, we’d only recently gotten in touch because of Rachel—the one at UVM. She was looking for an art project—a documentary for credit—and I introduced the two of them just a couple of months ago. It’s all so sad and unexpected. I’d really appreciate your giving this a look.”

Gunther was teeming with questions, but decided to bide his time and make his approach from the outside in. He reached for a nearby pad. “Give me the lead’s name, would you, Beverly? I’ll make a phone call and find out what I can.”

*   *   *

Brattleboro, Vermont, is in the state’s lower right-hand corner pocket, assuming that you envision a trapezoidal pool table with seven urban pockets instead of six, and that you allow for a spine of mountains to run down its middle. The state capital—the seventh pocket—is smack in the table’s middle. The others, starting with the lower left, are Bennington, Rutland, and Burlington up the western side, and St. Johnsbury, White River Junction, and Brattleboro down the eastern.

Once dependent on waterways, like most older New England hubs, Brattleboro is fed by the first three northbound Vermont exits of Interstate 91—the paved slab that had completely replaced the Connecticut River as a source of commercial vitality. The interstate showed up on maps like a chain saw’s scar, severing the town’s once bustling western extension and transforming it into an emotionally disenfranchised entity called West Brattleboro—or, more colloquially, “West B.”

That’s where the VSP barracks had been built, in an unfortunate example of 1970s architecture, the only advantage of which was its proximity to the Chelsea Royal Diner, just across the road.

Joe parked in the barracks lot, walked up the handicap ramp bordering the low building’s oppressively bland exterior, and was met at the door by a square-built young man wearing a dark blue shirt and matching tie. Cops find it hard to resist discounted tie-and-shirt bargains at Sears and Penney’s.

“Joe Gunther?” the man said, extending a broad and powerful hand in greeting. “I saw you drive up. I feel like I’m meeting a legend. This is a real honor. I’m Owen Baern.”

“Hardly a legend,” Joe told him, admiring the young detective’s distinctive head of curly hair—an unusual feature in a profession renowned for crew cuts and flattops. “More like a guy who never learned to quit.”

Baern escorted Joe into the building, through the secure lobby, and back into the core of the barracks. “That’s not what I’ve heard. You’re like the most famous cop we have.”

“How long you been at it, Owen?” Joe asked, as much to change subjects as out of modesty.

“Seven years. I’ve only been working plainclothes for a couple of months, though, so anything you can give me will be much appreciated. I need all the help I can get.”

They’d worked their way down a long central corridor, and now entered a small office equipped with two desks. “We talking in general?” Joe asked. “Or the Benjamin Kendall case I mentioned on the phone?”

Baern pulled out a guest chair for him. “Both, maybe. That’s up to you. You want some coffee or a soda?”

Joe sat down. “I’m good, thanks.”

There was a moment’s pause between strangers at a loss for words. Joe’s host settled hesitantly behind his desk.

“Why not start with Kendall?” Joe prompted. “How did you catch the case?”

Gratefully, Baern turned to his computer and began reading from the screen. “Came in as an anonymous tip. We chased the cell phone data upstream and pinned it to a guy named Jason Newville, DOB: 7/30/84. I know him from my days on the road. He’s a regular when it comes to B-and-Es, selling stolen copper, ripping off car stereos, even shoplifting. And of course, the standard pissant drug deal to see him through the weekend. He targeted Kendall’s place because he heard it was a gold mine and Kendall hadn’t been around lately.”

“Was that common?” Joe cut in.

Owen looked at him. “That Ben disappeared now and then? Just the opposite. He was a local fixture—him and his truck. You know about him?”

“I heard he was a hoarder.”

“Yeah. Amazing place. I never saw anything like it. Jammed, everywhere—floor to ceiling. I wouldn’t have anything to do with it. My dad was a pack rat. I hated it. Stank, too. But for the Jason Newvilles of the world? That’s the smell of opportunity.”

“You interviewed Jason,” Joe stated, assuming it was a given.

“Yeah. In the long run, he didn’t steal anything that I could tell—not that it’ll make much difference to the judge. Finding Ben creeped him out. He literally fell over him, according to his story, hightailed it out, and then couldn’t figure out what to do next.”

“So he called it in?”

Baern shook his head. “I know. Crazy enough to make it believable. Don’t know what to do? Call the cops, even if they’ll still arrest you for burglary.”

“You believe him?” Joe asked. “Newville?”

Owen absorbed the question before readjusting himself in his chair, thinking for a couple of seconds. “You know? I do,” he admitted quietly, as if fearful of being called out on it.

“The medical examiner phoned me,” Joe explained. “Ben was her cousin, it turns out.”

“Ouch,” Owen said, although clearly relieved to gain some insight on why Joe was there. He leaned into the computer again, checking its contents quickly. “The ME sent me a preliminary finding. I didn’t think there was anything suspicious, or that I’d dropped the ball. Just a heart attack and some minor trauma related to the landslide.”

“Undetermined for the time being,” Joe clarified. “You ever meet Hillstrom?”

“The chief up there? I heard about her. She’s not much fun, supposedly.”

“She can be driven,” Joe specified. “With Ben, she’s saying she wants to wait for the tox results, but that’s because she has no hard evidence of a straight-out coronary. This one is bugging her.”

“He was family,” Owen suggested.

“True,” Joe agreed affably. “But that should sharpen everyone’s game. Not just hers. Most people have family somewhere.”

Baern looked down at the desktop, abashed, before looking up and raising his eyebrows. “You want to see the place? Where we found him? I wouldn’t mind a second pair of eyes.”

*   *   *

Dummerston is typical of many communities across Vermont, less an actual town than a collection of sub-villages. There’s an elementary school at one location, a church and municipal offices at another, the meeting hall and the primary fire station at a third. It’s largely a spiderweb of roads, dirt and paved, including the longest covered bridge within Vermont proper. But its spread-out quality notwithstanding, the people who live in its embrace are more interconnected than residents of the average urban apartment building. Visitors—and locals—sometimes poked fun at the layout, referring to the homegrown as “woodchucks.” Joe Gunther, however—a native of a similar town, farther north—knew better. These communities could come close to being disjointed families, along with a vitality—and a level of caring—that most neighborhoods could only envy.

Owen Baern drove an unmarked four-wheel-drive vehicle to the end of a badly rutted, overgrown dirt road that finally ran out of ambition at a clearing on the edge of Ben Kendall’s property. It was past the foliage season, and what leaves were slated to fall had done so, leaving a skeletal superstructure of stark and empty hardwoods crowding in from all sides, as well as a dark blanket of rotting vegetation underfoot. To Joe’s eyes, it set the perfect backdrop to the bleak, time-pummeled collection of aging buildings before him, guarded by a thrown-up palisade of twisted and rusting machine parts that made the totality look like some sole survivor’s last stand in a postapocalyptic wasteland.

“Wow,” Joe commented, stretching his legs beside the car as he got out, and trying to read the lay of the land.

“That’s one word for it,” Owen agreed. “You can see the challenge to conducting a by-the-book scene survey. It reminds me of one of those man-against-the-machines movies, where everyone lost.”

“That it does,” Joe muttered, choosing a deliberate course between the obstacles, heading for the compound’s main house, and fighting the notion that one of the bristling metal haystacks might suddenly stir to life. It also didn’t help that, typical of this time of year, the low sky was bruised and menacing.

Baern fell in beside him. “Not hard to figure what Jason found attractive. When I interviewed him, he admitted that before he knew Ben was inside, dead, he didn’t know where to start. There was so much to choose from, he wished he’d stolen a flatbed truck first.”

“Tell me more about Jason,” Joe requested.

“Meaning might he have killed Ben in exchange for all this?” He waved an arm at the piles they were skirting.

“Maybe if he got surprised?” Joe asked.

Owen gave it some thought before shaking his head. “Never say never, as they say, but I don’t see it. Beyond a totally nonviolent rap sheet, I don’t think it fits his personality. He’s a schmoozer, and probably a bit of a coward. Plus, he did make the phone call, which speaks of somebody seriously out of his element. And let’s not forget that the body was already decomposing.”

“Good point,” Joe agreed.

They reached the door, which had been sealed with yellow tape and a
NO TRESPASSING
order. Baern pulled out a knife and cut through it, explaining, “We might not’ve done this normally. But with the autopsy still pending, and no other residents, I figured it couldn’t hurt.…”

“Sure,” Joe said. “You put a man out here?”

“The lieutenant said it wasn’t warranted. The tape’s to discourage more Jasons from crawling out of the woodwork for a shopping spree, but the budget couldn’t handle a babysitter.” Owen yanked open the door, adding, “Prepare yourself. It don’t smell pretty.”

It didn’t, despite the removal of Ben’s body. It was also no brighter inside than at midnight, every window being blocked by possessions.

Equipped with flashlights and breathing with their mouths open, they retraced Jason’s journey through tunnel and over dunes, to where the funeral home and others had excavated around the landslide’s foot, mostly by throwing heaps of material across the room. Joe could only imagine the disgust that had accompanied the clearing process.