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Authors: Archer Mayor

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BOOK: Scent of Evil
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“Hi, Joe.” I recognized Billy Manierre’s softly paternal voice. “John Woll just walked in—said he heard about the body on the radio. I showed him the photograph. Turns out he knew the guy.”

I thanked him and hung up the phone. It should have been good news, which of course it was. But I didn’t feel elated. Somehow, in my subconscious, a warning bell sounded in the distance. Perhaps it was the coincidence that the same officer who could identify our John Doe was also the one whose squad car was last seen parked near his grave.

4

JOHN WOLL AND BILLY MANIERRE
were in the patrol lieutenants’ office on the other side of the building’s main corridor. Like my office, it had a rectangular window looking into the larger room outside—the patrol division’s so-called officers’ room. Unlike my office, it had only that window, being an interior room, and its view was one of utter confusion and bedlam. For while the lieutenants’ office had been completed just the week before, the officers’ room still looked like a practice hall for aspiring carpenters.

I stepped over piles of two-by-fours, tangles of extension cords, and around several stranded sawhorses to get to the office door. During the renovation, the patrol division had been relocated across the hall to our side of the building, in a large, dark room with no long-range purpose. Eventually, one corner of it was slated to become Billy Manierre’s office, but for the moment, Billy had commandeered his present abode, despite its being both isolated from the rest of us and located smack-dab in the eye of the renovator’s storm. I noticed as I crossed the threshold that the wall-to-wall carpeting, still smelling strongly of its chemical origins, was embedded with a snow-like trail of sawdust.

Billy Manierre, big-bellied, white-haired, and patrician in the deputy chief’s dark-blue uniform he preferred over street clothes, filled the fanciest tilt-back, swivel office chair in the department, an item we were all convinced he’d intercepted on its way to the equally fancy new Court Building across the street. Opposite him sat John Woll, late twenties, narrow-bodied, thin-haired, wearing a permanent expression of weariness that made him look fifteen years older. He’d been on the force two years, was hard-working if uninspired, and was liked by just about everybody.

I perched on the corner of Billy’s desk, noticing the photograph of the dead man lying next to me. “So, you knew this man?”

Woll nodded. “I went to school with him. His name was Charlie Jardine.”

“What school?”

“Here—Brattleboro Union High.”

“What year was he, same as you?”

“Yeah, ’81.”

I paused to pick up the photograph. Woll’s answers were perfectly straightforward but somehow terse. Given the circumstances—his being the one man in the department with important knowledge—I would have expected more excitement from him. Instead, he was waiting for the questions, apparently unwilling to supply what should have been a torrent of information, both trivial and vital.

“Were you friends?”

“More like acquaintances.”

Again, I expected more and got nothing. “Did you keep up with him? Did he live around here?”

“Yeah, he lived in town—I’m not sure where.”

“What did he do?”

Woll shifted in his chair. Throughout, his eyes had kept to the carpet. This wasn’t unusual. He avoided eye contact as a rule and generally appeared uncomfortable with superior officers. In fact, he was somewhat reserved with everybody. But I was still hearing the echoes of that distant alarm bell.

Woll very quietly cleared his throat. “I don’t know exactly. We didn’t keep up. But I think he invested in things.”

“Stocks?”

“Stocks, bonds, probably more. I don’t know for sure.”

“Successful?”

“I guess.”

“When we found him, he was wearing a fancy silver ring and a chain around his neck. Does that sound right?”

He nodded. “Yeah, he was sort of flashy—popular with women.”

“Was he married?”

“No.”

The answer was both abrupt and curiously final, and I wondered why. But I didn’t ask—I didn’t want to make this too personal. Not yet.

“When was the last time you saw him?”

John Woll shook his head and let out a sigh. “Oh, gee. I don’t know. I’d see him around town, you know? In a car or walking on the sidewalk. But I haven’t talked to him in years. We weren’t friends or anything.”

I lightened my tone of voice. “Well, it won’t take long to get some kind of line on him. I gather you were on patrol last night near where Jardine’s body was found.”

Woll shrugged. “The embankment? I drove by there a couple of times, like always—even went down it once, but I didn’t see anything.”

“You went down it? Why?”

He looked at me, his eyes wide. Now that we were off Jardine in particular, Woll seemed more at ease and more willing to talk. “It was strange. I thought I saw a light—something flickering just out of sight. So I got out to take a look. There was a road flare… You know that flat sort of path between the dirt slope and the unfinished retaining wall, the space they’re filling in? That’s where it was lying, kind of tucked under the wall like it had been thrown there. I went down to investigate, but that’s all there was. I looked around with my flashlight, but I didn’t find anything. I finally figured someone must’ve lit it and chucked it over the side—like a prank, you know? Teenagers.”

“What did you do with the flare?”

“Stubbed it out and left it there. I couldn’t see anybody. No point putting it in the car—it would’ve just smelled it up.”

“Did you radio it in?”

“Oh, sure.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Billy nod slightly, confirming the claim. Obviously, he’d checked the night-dispatcher’s log but hadn’t gotten around to telling me yet.

Woll was watching us both. “Was Jardine found right there where the flare was?”

“We didn’t find a flare.”

There was a long, drawn-out silence. “I left it there,” Woll finally said in a near whisper.

“You said you patrolled that part of Canal a couple of times last night. Was it about three o’clock when you checked out the flare?”

Woll looked at me in surprise. “Yeah, how did you?… Oh, the log.”

“No, you were seen by a witness.”

I was watching for a reaction—some show of fear or doubt, some flicker of culpability. The lack of one made me berate myself. I too liked John Woll and had put in a good word when Brandt considered putting him on the payroll. He’d previously worked for us for several summers as a part-time “special officer” and I’d been impressed by his conscientiousness. During this questioning, however, I hadn’t looked at him in that light. The coincidence of his knowing Jardine had loomed too large. Now, as I watched his open expression, the guilt was mine.

“John, when you were on that ledge looking around, did you notice what the ground looked like? The guy who found the body said there were fewer footprints where Jardine was buried.”

He thought a moment and then shook his head. “I wasn’t looking for prints, you know? I thought there might be someone hiding down there, or maybe some dead flares, or something. I didn’t think to check for tracks. Like I said, I finally just figured somebody had tossed the thing there.”

“How long a flare was it?” I asked.

“Twenty minutes.”

“Was it set up, or just lying there?”

“Lying, like I said. If it’d been set up, I might have checked for footprints. That would’ve looked suspicious, as if it’d been carefully placed there.”

“Could you tell how long it had been burning?”

“Not really. It wasn’t petering out, though.”

I stood up and wandered over to the window. It had finally turned dark outside, and the officers’ room was shrouded in gloom. It promised to be a real obstacle course on the way out of here, since the overhead lights hadn’t been hooked up yet.

My view of the room was suddenly pierced by a small burst of light—the glassy reflection of Woll’s lighter behind me being put to the end of a cigarette. I turned to look at him as the flame died and he inhaled.

He misread my interest and quickly blew out a cloud of smoke. “I’m sorry. Is it okay to smoke?”

“I don’t mind. Billy?”

Manierre nodded. As Woll tucked the pack of cigarettes back into his breast pocket, I noticed they were Camels, the same brand Tyler had found in the dirt.

“John, did you ever get the feeling the flare had been put there to lure you to the ledge?”

“To get at my car, you mean? I didn’t see anything wrong when I got back to it.”

“No. I meant the opposite—that someone had wanted you on that ledge specifically.”

“No. Why would they?”

Why indeed? I scratched my head. I was making too much out of this. Hell, I’d been around this town for so many years it was amazing I didn’t know Charlie Jardine, too. I couldn’t walk down a single block without saying hi to half a dozen people most of the time. Was it any big deal, therefore, that John Woll had gone to school with the murder victim almost ten years ago? And he was probably right about the flare—it would have been the perfect prank to throw a lit flare over an embankment just as a police car was coming up the street.

But if that were true, then why had the flare been removed later? And why was Woll so reticent about Charlie Jardine? And why had a butt of his brand of cigarette been found in the grave?

I turned to face both men, Billy Manierre still looking like a silent Buddha in his chair. “Okay, John, thanks for coming in early. If you think of anything more about Jardine that might be helpful, let me know.”

Woll stood up and crossed over to the door. “Sure will, Lieutenant. See you later.”

I stood watching the door after he’d closed it behind him. Manierre’s low, soothing voice hung in the air. “What’re you thinking, Joe?”

I looked over my shoulder at him. “That maybe I’ve been in this business too long.”

“I doubt that.”

I sat in the chair Woll had occupied. “What did you think of that little chat—the first part?”

“He didn’t look too comfortable. That might have been you.”

“Me? Why?”

“John’s not a tough guy—he might have felt you were putting him under the hot lights.”

“I was a bit. I think he’s holding back on Jardine.”

Billy tilted his head to one side. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means he holds back in general—that’s partly why everyone likes him. The rest of us wander around gossiping about whoever’s not in the room. Willy Kunkle was always a prime target for that, remember? But John’s not that way. He minds his own business. I think you’ll find out that maybe Jardine and John had it out over a girl in high school or something, and that John still feels bad about it. That would fit him like a glove, by the way. John’s a bit of a brooder.”

“He had a drinking problem once, didn’t he?”

“That’s what I mean. He’s a good worker, though.”

“Yeah. I was just remembering I recommended him to Tony.”

“We all did, Joe. He’s a good man.”

I let out a sigh. “I guess that’s the problem with a case like this. You think if you get the pin back into the grenade fast enough, maybe the damn thing won’t go off.”

“Well, I seriously doubt John Woll is your pin. Besides, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to transport and dump a body while he was on patrol.”

“I know, I know. It was just a coincidence I wanted to check out.”

Billy stood up and stretched. “Well, I think I’ll cross the hall and check on the troops.”

I stayed in my chair. “Sure. And thanks.”

Billy disappeared into the gloom beyond his door with the confidence of a man who knew his way through a minefield by heart.

5

AT NINE O’CLOCK THAT EVENING
, Klesczewski, Patrolman Jerry Mayhew, and I met up with Patrol Sergeant Al Santos at 55 Marlboro Avenue, the residence of Charles J. Jardine. Santos had been on guard at Jardine’s house ever since I’d sent him to find out whether the dead man whose photo we had was the Jardine listed in the phone book. Forty-five minutes after Santos had radioed in that a neighbor had confirmed the identity, we’d secured a signed search warrant.

It was a modest house, very neat and tidy, one-and-a-half stories tall with two peaked dormers and a similarly designed small roof over the front door. The trim and clapboards were painted different shades of gray-blue, offsetting one another nicely. The small square lawn had been mowed and edged. The houses up and down the wide street were comparable in size and appearance—a symmetry Levittown had made famous forty years before—although Jardine’s was remarkably immaculate.

A little-known grid of six short, intersecting streets surrounded by two cemeteries, a wooded ravine, and the Brattleboro Union High School, this section of Brattleboro looked airlifted from a quiet Midwestern suburb. It was located on perhaps the highest point of land around, on the southern edge of town, which added to its air of serenity. There was a sense of space here, unlike in the rest of Brattleboro, where most of the homes had a pushed together look, the way a child hurriedly gathers his blocks together in a haphazard jumble on a bunched-up blanket.

Santos pulled a key from his pocket. “Neighbor had it—in case of an emergency. Apparently Jardine lived alone.”

I looked beyond Santos to the house next door. A man in a baseball cap and shorts—and nothing else—was hovering on his front porch, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as if he’d been denying nature’s call in fear of missing our arrival. My glance got him going like a starter’s gun. He bustled through the screen door, came down his porch steps, and crossed over to us, his sunburned belly jiggling with every step. Absurd at it was, I envied him his attire. Despite the hour, it was still suffocatingly hot, and my pants and shirt clung to me like an unwelcome embrace.

“So what happened to Charlie?” The man smiled awkwardly and removed his hat, as if to reveal his honesty.

“I’m Lieutenant Gunther. Are you his neighbor?”

“Ned Beaumont—I lent this officer the key.” He stuck out his hand. I could tell before I shook it what a spongy, unpleasant experience it would be.

BOOK: Scent of Evil
12.37Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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