Scent of Evil (46 page)

“And John Woll?” asked Tyler.

It was a legitimate question, if a bit theatrical. I’d spent all night watching Tyler work, and the State Police Mobile Crime Lab, which I’d insisted should join us. They had all examined the crime scene in detail and hadn’t found anything out of place, except, as the state boys were quick to point out, what Billy’s people had trampled. Hillstrom hadn’t contacted me yet about John’s autopsy, a fact Tyler knew, so I was curious what had prompted his rejoinder.

“John was murdered?” Sammie asked, an incredulous look on her face.

Tyler crossed his arms. “I think so.”

“Based on what?” I asked.

He let out a sigh. “Just before I came over here, I got a visit from Dunn’s investigator. The SA decided—a little late—to let me see John’s fingerprints. They don’t match what I lifted from the curare bottles.”

A general murmuring filled the room.

I raised both my hands. “Okay, hold it. Let’s talk about John a bit. I don’t argue that his death might have been a homicide; the state crime lab is looking into that, and so is Beverly Hillstrom. But I also don’t see where it would have benefited anyone to kill him. On the face of it, he was a prime candidate for suicide, and I think we all ought to admit that’s a strong possibility. None of us likes to think a friend, much less a colleague, could be pushed that far; maybe there’s an element of guilt here. I do know, though, that we can’t let it derail us. It’s just possible, at long last, that we’ve gained an advantage; sure as hell, the attempt to destroy those curare bottles proves we’re giving this guy a hotfoot.”

I held up my index and thumb and held them a half-inch apart. “We might be that close, folks. Let Hillstrom and the state boys do their job and report back to us. In the meantime, let’s see if we can nail the son of a bitch.”

I watched my small, grim audience. I understood the pressure they were under, and I shared their grief. Nevertheless, I fully believed what I’d told them; we had turned a corner, and we were getting closer to the end. To disintegrate now would be to literally let a killer slip between our fingers.

Tyler helped stabilize the boat he’d just rocked. “So where’s tonight’s meeting?”

I pulled a schematic map from my pocket. “This is a layout of the Brattleboro Union High School. From the viewpoint of our fictional snitch, it’s the perfect rabbit warren in which to disappear if things go wrong. It’s got dozens of exits and a million nooks and crannies.”

The map showed an almost random clustering of rectangles, surrounding two open-air courtyards. Some parts of the overall building, which had grown over the decades addition by addition, were two stories tall, others were one, and the auditorium was about two and a half. It was a huge, convoluted, labyrinthine structure, a classic case of pragmatism over form.

I poked my finger at one corner of it. “This is the main cafeteria. It’s got about seven exits, direct or roundabout. To a real-life informant it’s custom-made. Given short notice, we wouldn’t have the time or the manpower to adequately seal it off and trap anyone inside.”

“You’re not gonna have a real snitch?” DeFlorio interrupted.

I looked up at Pierre Lavoie and smiled. “I’m going to have a real person play one.” Everyone chuckled and he reddened slightly, obviously pleased. “Compared to the rest of us, Pierre has been pretty low-profile. Once we dress him up and slap a fake beard on him, he should do just fine.”

I returned to the map. “The point is, what looks to be a custom-made layout for escape will actually be a locked box. At night on the weekends, the school is divided into sections, either by heavy internal gates that come out of the walls or by padlocked chains run through the handles of interior double doors. It allows them to limit total access in case they’re broken into. The implication will be that the snitch has at least one passkey, and thus access to part of the building. In fact, we’ll use the gates to our advantage and surreptitiously guard the other supposedly open passages. The idea is to let our eavesdropper into the cafeteria, and then lock the place up behind him. And just to make sure we don’t end up on the wrong side of a locked door or gate should something go wrong, I’ve had passkeys made up for all of you.” I handed them out.

Even as I laid it out for them, it sounded a little slim. If Lavoie and I were playacting in the cafeteria, that left only Sammie, J.P., and Dennis to block all those potential exits. I added as an afterthought, “Of course, some of the doors will be jammed so they can’t be opened from either side; that’ll help slant the odds in our favor.”

Sammie was clearly underwhelmed. “We going to have backup on this?”

“I don’t think it’ll work if we do,” I told her.

I was not the only one aware of how information had been gushing out of the department. The hidden microphone in my office was one obvious explanation for that, but everyone in the room knew the problem was much larger. Where there was one mike, there were probably more, a fact we couldn’t risk exploring without showing our hand. And the strong possibility existed that the man pulling the strings had a backup system in place, maybe even a cop on the dole.

Involving our Special Reaction Team, normally the thing to do, would be inviting disaster, which brought up another question, this time from Tyler. “You’re setting yourselves up as sitting ducks. I mean, if this guy does take the bait, it’ll be to kill this supposed snitch, and you with him.”

“Pierre and I’ll be wearing armor, and we’ll be wired for sound. But the whole thing hangs on all of us working within very close tolerances. I also want to pull in the chief on this—give him a little street exercise—so we’ll have one extra body to put in place.”

I had an additional card to play, but I didn’t show it here, no more than I had since I’d first thought it up. Willy Kunkle, as irascible, deformed, and illegal as he was on paper for an operation like this, was the ace up my sleeve. Not to share my thoughts with my colleagues was a flagrant breach of faith and probably good grounds, if I was caught, for my dismissal. The risk of being caught and fired, however, was secondary to the shocked response I knew I’d get from my own squad. Pulling in Kunkle without telling them, especially after the stunt I’d pulled with Woll early on, would prove I didn’t trust them. And that would mean the end of my effectiveness as their lieutenant, now and forever.

Yet I was still going to attempt it, to try to entice Kunkle to join the operation. An obsessed and devil-driven paranoid, he had always been a trustworthy cop. I wanted him as my hidden floater in this game plan, the guy whose training and outlook wouldn’t allow for a last-minute screwup.

I’d tried to tell myself at first that I was keeping Kunkle to myself because he was an illegal in this, a handicapped civilian involved in an undercover police operation. But in my heart, I knew that, especially with John Woll’s death, I wasn’t sure I trusted my own people anymore. I didn’t want to believe that, but I had to consider it, and I wasn’t about to risk Pierre’s life and mine just to spare a few hurt feelings.

For now, Willy Kunkle would remain my little secret, one I planned to share only with Brandt. I did my best to shove the moral debate to the back of my mind as I spent the next ninety minutes going over our plan of attack again and again until everyone knew their roles by heart.

· · ·

I was able to secure a warrant for Fred McDermott’s bank records, much to Sammie’s delight. The evidence against him had built up like the incoming tide, gradually, with little fanfare. It hadn’t been at all like the case against John Woll, complete with footprints, cigarette butts, incriminating personal ties, and a shiny gold watch in a sock drawer. McDermott was being painted into a corner almost by innuendo. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time; he wasn’t around when he needed an alibi the most; his office held the transmitter but not the receiver of a listening device; he had an unexplained bank account.

Cumulatively, it satisfied Judge Harrowsmith, especially when given the proper slant in the affidavit, but I was not as sanguine as Sammie Martens. I couldn’t overlook how many times we’d been led down the wrong path in this case, nor could I ignore the price John Woll had finally paid for that. I didn’t want another falsely accused man on my conscience—nor did I want a guilty one to get away because of my timidity.

I was about to invite Brandt out into the Municipal Building’s parking lot to discuss some of this, when Dispatch buzzed me on the intercom to inform me the state police had dug something up they thought we’d find interesting.

Their meaning was quite literal. With J.P. in tow, I followed directions to West Brattleboro, to a lonely field off Ames Hill Road, and to a well-dug grave containing the decomposing body of Tobias A. “Toby” Huntington. He had been shot in the head.

A good half of Brattleboro’s legally defined geography is unadulterated countryside: verdant hills, small lonely streams, and meadows grazed by horses and cows, all looking as remotely pastoral as their country cousins one hundred miles into the boondocks.

Toby’s last home emphasized that fact, tucked as it was under the shade of the first row of trees bordering the lower edge of a field. As a young and proper Vermont State Trooper explained that the body had been uncovered by a local farmer’s overly curious dog, I was intensely aware of the silent shimmering heat radiating off the burnt-blond grass beyond the shade. I could hear, above the insects and birds, the sound I’d been hearing all too often as of late: the squawk of walkie-talkies and the distant wail of sirens signaling yet another homicide. I began wondering what it was that had prompted me as a young man to pursue a line of business so dedicated to exposing society’s least attractive habits.

Tyler conferred with the trooper on how his own evidence gathering should coordinate with that of the state’s mobile crime lab. I moved to the edge of the scene and leaned against the burning metal of a parked patrol car.

“So this is the guy you’ve been looking for.” Tony Brandt had quietly crossed the field and stood before me.

“Yeah.” The enthusiasm I’d felt at my meeting this morning had evaporated with this latest discovery. Watching homicide-scene technicians yet again at work, measuring, photographing, collecting, I began to question whether we’d made any progress at all.

Although I’d never met him, Toby’s death hit me as hard as John Woll’s. I had been concerned for his safety, had considered the darker possibilities for his disappearance, but I had always hoped he’d be able to avoid the man stalking him as well as he had us. Four people were now dead, and I had no idea who might be next. That thought depressed me as few things had before.

Brandt seemed to know what was going on inside me. He, more than anyone on the force, had traveled the same path for as long as I had. And he, more than I, had done battle with politicians, press, and public, all opponents who were never easily satisfied. Who better could recognize in a fellow cop the telltale warnings of impending burnout?

He asked me the kind of deductive question that could bring me back to the scene before us: “Why was he buried here?”

It was said casually, and it took a few seconds to sink in, like a rock seeking the bottom of a well. But when it touched home, I began to play back the events leading to this grave, as well as to another I’d stood over just days before.

“Because he—unlike Charlie Jardine—wasn’t meant to be found.”

Charlie’s burial had been an arrogant challenge, put forth by a mind that believed itself in control. It had been the first overt move in a carefully thought-out campaign. Toby Huntington had been killed by a man scrambling to cover his tracks, just as when he’d attacked Ron and me in the parking lot, and even earlier, when he’d shot Milly Crawford. With Milly he had taken the time to salt the trail with red herrings. Lately, however, that subtlety had begun to evaporate, replaced, I realized, with a propensity to make mistakes.

As a living potential witness, Toby had been an elusive, uncooperative failure. Now, I became increasingly convinced, he might help us far more from his burial place.

I walked to the roped-off edge of the scene. “J.P.” Tyler, on his knees, his evidence kit beside him, looked up at me. “It’s just a feeling, but don’t get too lost in the details here. I think our man is running for cover, and I don’t think he’s taking time to be overly neat and tidy.”

“You mean, look for the killer’s wallet under the body?”

“You can dream if you want, but make sure you tell Hillstrom to compare any bullet fragments recovered here to what she dug out of John Woll.”

Tyler sat back on his heels and flashed a smile. “Wouldn’t that be sweet?”

I walked back to Tony Brandt, my earlier depression blown away as by the wind, the smell of the scent again fresh in my nostrils. I took him by the elbow and steered him away from the small crowd, out into the privacy of the open field. “I’ve got something cooking that should scare the hell out of whatever political ninth life you have left.”

· · ·

Willy Kunkle had apparently organized the local-history room until it could stand no more. We were now on the first floor, in the back corner of the research section, in a twenty-by-five-foot room filled with racked back issues of magazines like
Consumer Reports
and
Road & Track
.

Kunkle was savagely jamming weatherworn issues back into their proper places after a day in which the periodicals had seen more than their fair share of use.

I was patiently waiting for his reaction to my invitation.

“Why the fuck should I help you guys?”

“You have so far.”

“I was curious; it was total self-interest.”

“It was also useful, and it’s beginning to flush this guy out.”

“You could’ve fooled Toby.”

“Toby may yet tell us things.”

He didn’t answer, and I watched him for several minutes at work, his muscular right hand working as fast and sure as a hawk talon. After he’d left the department, I’d heard he’d begun lifting weights and exercising with his usual obsessive drive. Indeed, aside from the withered arm, I’d never seen him fitter.