Latour hadn’t touched the folder, but his eyes were fixed to it. “I had heard something,” he slowly admitted. “I guess I was hoping it would go away.”
I didn’t rub it in. My own dealings with this case weren’t entirely aboveboard. “Look, for what it’s worth, I think it will go away. I talked to Jan Bouch alone on the street, after she and her husband had finished their little tap dance, and she admitted she knew Padget pretty well. I was about to get her to roll over on her story when her hubby came charging down on us. But she’s weak, Emile, and I think if I’d done this right the first time, and brought them both into the station for questioning, we’d be done with this by now. My guess is Norm found out what everybody else knows and tried to get Brian fired. But they make a lousy pair of liars-I think if I squeeze them a bit more, maybe let them know the penalties for false accusation, I can get them to fold.”
“I hope so,” he said grumpily.
“This is good news, you know,” I told him.
He waved that aside and swiveled his chair to stare at a distant wall. “I know.”
“You disappointed with Brian?”
He waved the notion away. “A little… How long you been a cop?”
“Thirty years, plus.”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “Long time. Maybe Bratt’s a better place to spend that much time, but I’m starting to feel sucked dry. Did Davis tell you why we can’t hold on to most of our people for more than a couple of years?”
“I figured it was the money.”
He let out a short, humorless laugh. “That’s true enough, but I meant the size of the patrol. One square mile. They go around and around, night after night, passing each other in the streets, picking up the same people for the same complaints. There’s a lot of action, but the monotony gets to them-fast. Most of them live outside the village, so all they do is clock in at night, do their shift, and leave in the morning. They never get to see the other side-the Bellows Falls that Greg Davis and I live in during the day, with the retailers and professionals and the kids at school and all the normal things. To these young guys, this is a combat zone-a town of losers.”
“They don’t seem to be alone in that,” I said.
“I saw you reading that notice at the town hall,” he answered indirectly, “before we met with Eric Shippee-about the committee to revitalize the village.”
“Changing the name to Great Falls?” I said with a smile.
“I won’t deny it’s been tried before. And that particular idea is a little over the top. But this new group is serious. They’re not bitching about the lack of state or federal funds anymore. They’re doing it themselves-coming up with the money, the manpower, the ideas. They’re making real changes and they’re not working in a vacuum, either-there’s been a turnover in the high school leadership, a few rich people have gotten involved, even the various boards are showing some cooperation, although Shippee’s just paying it all lip service. It may fall flat, but for the first time there’s a real spirit growing.”
“So why’s that put you in the dumps?” I asked.
His gaze shifted to the sloped ceiling. “I’m not sure. Maybe all that enthusiasm is telling me I’m with the wrong outfit. I’m sick and tired of the morons we drag in here day in and day out. I want to be part of something hopeful. Maybe not in Bellows Falls-although that’s what I’d really like-but at least somewhere I can help things grow.”
He reminded me of how, when we’d met, I’d thought of his hands as belonging to a farmer.
I didn’t fault him for his mood, or even for how it had probably influenced his speaking prematurely to Shippee and looking ineffectual as a result. Actually, I was flattered that despite our brief acquaintance, he’d trusted me as a sounding board. He’d seen in me a kindred spirit, in years if not in attitude, and spoken as few cops do to anyone, much less a colleague.
That trust, along with what he’d said, softened my initial skepticism about the man and made me honor his privacy. Rather than pressing him further, therefore, I rose quietly, said, “I hope it works out for you-let me know if I can help,” and left him with his thoughts. I wasn’t sure he noticed me leave.
Downstairs I found Greg Davis filling out a form in the dispatch room. He glanced up as I entered. “Things looking better for Brian?”
“So far so good. You pick up anything?” I added as an afterthought.
“Only that you and Norm had it out in the street today.”
I made no comment, but it highlighted Latour’s comment about the size of the village. “Do you have an in-house name file on your regular problem cases? People you don’t share with NCIC and everybody else?”
“Sure. Over here.” He led me to a computer at the far end of the counter he’d been using. He typed a few entries, set up the screen, and stepped back. “Just enter who you’re after. If we got it, it should pop right up.”
Discreetly, he returned to his paperwork, no questions asked. I appreciated both the access and the courtesy, neither of which he’d been obliged to render. Internal files, departmental and personal, were not quite trade secrets, but they could be jealously guarded, especially from a man who was there to investigate one of their own.
I typed in “Morgan, Jasper,” and hit Enter. The reference instantly appeared.
“Huh,” I let out, surprised at being so instantly gratified.
“Get what you were after?” Davis asked from across the room.
“Yeah. Take a look.”
He came over and gazed at the screen. “Jasper Morgan. Looks like he and Norm Bouch were pretty buddy-buddy… ” He leaned forward and pressed Scroll. “At least until last year. No arrests, but whenever things got rowdy, Mr. Morgan was nearby. Who is he?”
“Teenage doper from our neck of the woods. You must’ve gotten a BOL on him about a month ago. Brained one of our officers, stole his gun, and vanished into thin air.”
Davis’s face broke into a grin. “Oh shit. I remember that. Pierre Lavoie. I was going to bust his chops next time I saw him.”
“You’ll have to stand in line. So you don’t know Morgan personally?”
He studied the screen again. “The only officer still here who dealt with him is Emily Doyle-twice, according to this. She’s on tonight, if you want to talk with her.”
Emily Doyle was short, square, and muscular, with close-cropped dark hair and a nervous tension reminiscent of a hungry dog. She sat on the edge of her chair in the upstairs officers’ room, feet planted apart, elbows on her knees, her hands holding a pen like a weapon. Her eyes were fixed on my every movement.
“This about Brian?” she demanded. “ ’Cause we know what you’re trying to do. I won’t help you with that, no matter what the rules say.”
I met her gaze. “You won’t help me clear him?”
She smiled bitterly. “Right-clear him. That’s not your job. You’re the cop’s cop, and a cop busts people.”
“How old are you?”
She looked mildly offended, which was fair, given my tone of voice. “Twenty-one.”
“Then you’ve got plenty of time to do your homework. Something like seventy-five percent of all internal investigations result in the officer concerned being cleared, not the other way around.”
“You’d tell me anything to get what you’re after. And even if it was true, then it means most of what they accuse us of is bullshit. But we’re cops, so of course we’re guilty. Not like some scumbag with a knife in his hand-we have to presume he’s innocent.”
It wasn’t an argument I wanted to have, so I dropped it there, but my heart was a little heavier for her knee-jerk jingoism-all too common in law enforcement.
“I’m not here to ask you about Brian,” I said instead. “I’m also running an investigation back home on a teenager named Jasper Morgan. His name came up in relation to Norm Bouch. I saw from the files that you know him, or at least met him. He’s about twenty now, from Brattleboro, skinny, medium height, brown hair, bad complexion.”