He met me at the door, grabbed my arm, and propelled me toward a second, narrower staircase leading up to the visitors’ gallery overlooking the chamber. “Too noisy here,” he said, a broad smile contrasting with the tenseness in his voice. “I know somewhere quieter we can talk.”
At the top of the stairs, he steered me away from the galleries toward a small, low, locked panel that looked like a discreet closet door. He dug into his pocket and extracted a key. “I’m not supposed to have this, but you take what you can in this job.”
The small door opened onto a rough wooden corridor lined with electrical boxes, ductwork, and bundles of wiring. A second opening to the right led up a final set of stairs, made of bare, unfinished two-by-sixes.
We finally emerged through the floor of the State House dome, which towered a good sixty feet above us in a giddying grid of raw trusses and crude bracing—in startling contrast to its sleek, gilded exterior. Encircling us were twelve tall decorative windows, alive with the buzzing of hundreds of trapped flies, incongruously out of season, beating against the warm, sunlit glass. A rough wooden catwalk crisscrossed overhead to a final small door, almost invisible at the top.
“They sometimes bring school groups up here to show them how it was put together.” He gestured directly overhead. “There’s a little balcony way up there, too—it’s quite a view.”
I didn’t answer, waiting for the public persona to settle down to normal. Looking around, I saw dozens of names scribbled on the rough lumber surfaces surrounding us—simple signatures of people who apparently thought the most impact they could have on this building and its occasionally self-inflated inhabitants was to furtively leave their mark in an unseen place.
Reynolds glanced at the note he still held in his hand. He was a big man—broad, tall, trunk-like in build, with a thick mane of unruly hair.
In court and on the stump, he used that to his advantage, frequently raising both arms to better resemble a bear, while occasionally flashing a boyish smile as if to show he wasn’t without heart. It was a physical demonstration of the ambiguity that helped make him all things to all people—and which hinted at a lack of sincerity to those who got too close or looked too hard.
He waved the note at me. “What did you mean by this?”
I’d taken Brandt’s recommendation to heart. The note had read, “I’d like to know why your name keeps cropping up,” and I’d signed it, “Lt. Joe Gunther—Brattleboro Police,” to put the question into context.
I extracted it from his fingers and placed it in my pocket. “Mostly I just wanted to get your attention. It is true, though, and Tony Brandt thought we better talk.”
His expression was unhappy and guarded. “Maybe you should be a little more specific,” he said slowly.
“There was a break-in at your office you downplayed at the time but later hired Win Johnston to investigate. I got a call saying you might be involved in the illegal dumping of hazardous waste—right after we discovered a broken-down empty truck that had just made a midnight delivery in Dummerston. And finally, your Crown Victoria was seen at the end of Arch Street, carrying three men who deposited a body on the railroad tracks, which was then pulverized by the night freight.”
Up to the end, his face wore the neutral expression I’d seen him use in court. But the last item got a reaction. His eyes grew wide and incredulous. “When the hell was
that
supposed to have happened?”
I gave him the date we’d decided upon. “January sixth.”
He shook his head. “That’s bullshit. I was up here that night.”
“With anybody? In the middle of the night?”
He became angry. “What the hell’s that mean? I have an apartment downtown. I was alone. I don’t use that car, anyhow. It’s my wife’s and she keeps it in Bratt. My car’s got Senate plates.”
“You could have driven home and back, with nobody the wiser.”
He stared at me, his mouth half open. He reached behind him and groped for the railing at the top of the stairs, leaning heavily against it. “This is like a bad movie. I thought that guy was a bum who committed suicide.”
I was impressed. Hitting someone out of the blue could have all sorts of unintended benefits, especially with lawyers, who were trained to recover quickly. Honest-to-goodness bafflement was a rarity.
“That’s what we’ve let the press believe so far. But we have witnesses to the contrary.”
The politician in him began to revive. He looked at me closely. “How many people think it was my car?”
“Just my squad. It won’t stay there for long, though. Never does.”
He rubbed his forehead. “Jesus H. Christ. How the hell…? Does my wife know? Did you talk to her yet?”
I shook my head. “Thought I’d see you first. The car’s registered in your name.”
He waved a hand absentmindedly. “They all are. Who was the victim, if he wasn’t a bum?”
I decided to keep that to myself. “We don’t know yet. We’re still checking.”
Reynolds rose and began pacing the wide expanse amid the windows, further stirring up the flies. “Look, I can tell you right now I have no idea what this is about. But I know what kind of impact it’s going to have. I’ll do all I can to help, and you can count on my wife for the same cooperation.” He stopped before me. “But will you at least try to keep a lid on it until you’ve got something solid? It’s not just the embarrassment. I’m doing something downstairs I hope’ll change this entire state—make it safer for its citizens and create a better place for you to do your work. It’s precedent-setting. If we get this bill passed, it’ll be a real sign we’re no longer tied down by traditions and habits that date back to the horse and buggy. And we could do it. Vermont more than any other state in the Union has proved how bipartisan pragmatism can be made to work for the good of all. We can get the job done if we don’t let the kinds of bastard that’re behind this get to us.”
I held up my hand. “No offense, Senator, but I don’t really care. It doesn’t change how I do my job.”
He tucked his head and smiled apologetically, even shuffled a foot. “Sorry. Got carried away. You can’t believe how that hit—what you just told me. There’s nothing to it, but it could sink me all the same.”
“What about hiring Johnston?”
He hesitated. “That was for protection. I didn’t find anything missing after that break-in, but I wanted to know who did it and why.”
“One of our officers noticed a couple of file drawers were open, as if someone had been rifling through them.”
He dismissed that with a wave of his hand. “Sloppy housekeeping on my part. I left them open by mistake.”
“Doesn’t your secretary tidy up before she leaves?”
He laughed. “I’m the one who usually closes up. She works regular hours. Believe me, mine’s no nine-to-five job.” He shook his head. “Look, nothing happened at the office—don’t waste your time. It’s the other thing that worries me—politics can get pretty dirty, even here, if the stakes are high enough. And they couldn’t get much higher.”
“Meaning seeing your car at the railroad tracks is a setup?”
“I don’t know what it means,” he answered carefully. “I know it didn’t happen, or if it did, it was without my knowledge. Assuming your witness actually did see my car—and you better check his reliability—it means someone’s very serious about getting me out of the way. The same goes for that rumor about me being involved in illegal dumping.”
He straightened slowly, almost imperceptibly, until I was fully and belatedly aware of his towering over me. “It would be a shame, given what I’m trying to do here, to have your department used as an instrument of libel. Once the truth came out, the fallout would be enormous.”
There was a long pause, during which I merely looked him in the eye. Then he turned on his heel and went back downstairs.
It had bordered on being a personal threat. I’d seen him in action before. It wasn’t a bluff.
I GOT BACK TO BRATTLEBORO BY LATE AFTERNOON
and found Tony Brandt sitting in his office, talking on the phone. He waved me to a seat, quickly concluded his conversation, and put his feet up on his desk—his preferred position of contemplation.
“He confess?”
I laughed. “Right. No—I’ll give him that much. If he is guilty, he hides it well. He looked totally bowled over, then he got curious, then he pulled the I’ll-sue-your-ass card out of the deck. He says forces from the Dark Side are out to get him, and we better watch out we don’t become their unwitting handmaiden. He also told me he’s probably the best thing that’ll ever happen to us in our lifetime.”
“Us? You mean the cops?”
“And everyone else. Brave New World is right around the corner, assuming he gets that bill passed.”
“You tell him what his chances are?”
“I figured I was there to listen. He’s an impressive guy.”
Tony gazed at me thoughtfully. “So are a lot of bastards.”
“I thought you voted for him.”
“I did. But he’s a defense lawyer and a politician and he’s put everything on the table with this thing. Defining the Dark Side might depend on your point of view here. I know a lot of people who’d love for him to disappear.”
I’d already expressed how I thought some sort of streamlining of all these police agencies might make sense. I was curious to hear the educated other side, especially from someone I trusted.
“Like who?” I asked.
“Basically anyone who’s fought hard to get where they are. The state police at the top of the heap, the chiefs with their cherished turfs, the sheriffs with their town and state contracts, all the boards of selectmen fearing loss of local control, the right-wingers and the tree-huggers screaming socialism or fascism, depending. It’s almost hard to think of anyone who
would
be for this bill.”
“That include you?”
“Not necessarily. A bunch of other places have made it work—including small countries—and they’re bigger and busier than we are. But common sense doesn’t always apply—most people agree education should no longer be funded with property taxes. Doesn’t mean it’ll ever change. There are a few things in life we’re just plain stuck with, and in Vermont one of them’s the local cop, as redundant, expensive, and inefficient as that may be.”
“So Reynolds is screwed.”
He laughed softly and raised his eyebrows. “Who knows? A hundred years ago, nobody thought women would get the vote.”
I got up and moved to the door. “There are a lot more of them than there is of him—even with his ego. One thing I did get, by the way, was that this scares the hell out of him.”
“I don’t doubt it. You think he’s involved at all?”
I paused on the threshold. “His car being seen at the tracks seemed to hit him out of the blue. Hiring Win as a bird dog sounded reasonable to me. But he blew off the dumping accusation pretty fast—there may be something to it.”
“What’re you going to do now?” he asked me.
“Check in with Sammie and the others. See what they came up with today. Then I was planning to visit Mrs. Reynolds.”
Tony nodded his approval. “Good. How’s Sammie doing, by the way?”
I hesitated, surprised he knew anything was wrong. “Okay.”
He smiled conspiratorially. “I have my sources, Joe. She’s good people—we both know that. She’s also young.” He left it at that.
“I know,” I agreed. “I’m keeping an eye on it.”
“One last thing,” he added. “Let Kunkle and Sam handle the Croteau killing. I want you to keep on Reynolds. We need to know if your witness is all wet on pinning his car to the scene, or what really happened if he’s not. This one could do us damage, Joe. Okay? The press could have a field day.”
It was a rare request from a boss who usually let his department heads rule their roosts. But I sensed he was right. Despite the current popular appeal of the Croteau killing over the railroad death, Reynolds was a celebrity and could tilt that balance in a heartbeat.
· · ·
J.P. Tyler was in his element, sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by paper evidence envelopes, videotapes, Polaroid photographs, a plaster casting, and several brown paper bags, with a clipboard balanced on his knees.
“Have a good day?” I asked him, careful to keep outside his circle of possessions.
He looked up and smiled broadly, a rare show of happiness. “Pretty good.”
“Find the murder weapon?” I guessed.
He tapped one of the bags by his side with a pencil. “Butcher knife—ten-inch blade. One of a set of five the victim had in her kitchen. It’s got prints on it. I checked by blowing iodine fumes across the handle, but I want to send it to Waterbury so they can do a complete job on it.” He rooted around through a pile of photographs and handed me a shot of the handle covered with purple fingerprints. Blowing iodine gas across a surface will often make prints briefly appear—usually long enough to take a picture. The remarkable thing was that these prints were clear. Hollywood notwithstanding, that was not usually the case.
I handed it back. “You been able to compare them to anyone yet?”
He was back to inventorying and didn’t look up. “Nope, except the victim, of course. They aren’t hers, or at least not all of them are. I’m driving up to the forensics lab tonight so I can get a clear copy of at least one of them and run it through their AFIS machine. Assuming that’s okay with you.”
“Sure.” AFIS stood for Automated Fingerprint Identification System and in simple terms consisted of a fancy copier hooked to a growing national computer database. You could put the image of a print or someone’s actual hand on the glass and have the digitally translated results compared to what an increasing number of agencies had on file, including the FBI. There was supposed to have been one of these “live scan stations” in every county of the state by now, and all across New Hampshire and Maine as well. But somewhere the works had been gummed up, and we were still waiting.
J.P. continued, “We found the knife about halfway up the street, in the bushes to the left. Placement suggests it was thrown from a car.”
“The plaster mold?”
“Yup—tire track, opposite where the knife was. It was fresh, showed a little skidding, and it was off the edge of the road, in the dirt, as if the driver swerved over to throw something out.”