The sexual harassment case against Brian Padget collapsed like a pierced balloon, as I’d thought it would. After leaving Lawrence and Phil Marchese, I continued playing hooky and spent the rest of the morning in Brattleboro with my squad, suggesting we contact the towns Amy Sorvino had mentioned, to see if Norman Bouch or Oliver Twist-style teenage gangs rang any bells. I had been planning to grill the Bouches later in the day, in far more detail than the day before, but around lunchtime a phone call from Emile Latour turned that idea inside out.
“The Bouches want to come in at two o’clock and make a clean breast about Brian.”
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
“Norm called me and said Brian was the innocent victim of a marital spat. He wants to make a formal statement to you and put the whole thing to rest.”
“Did he say the marital spat was because his wife and Brian were fooling around?”
“No-just that Brian had nothing to do with it.”
I frowned at the phone. “Making Norm the only guy in town not to know?”
Latour didn’t answer.
“How’s Brian feel about it?”
There was a telling pause at the other end of the line, from which I assumed Brian had not been informed. “If they do as they claim, we’re not going to pursue it.”
His tone of voice reminded me of when we’d both been in the town manager’s office.
“What’s going on?” I asked, irritated by the memory. “It’s not necessarily ‘we’ who have anything to say in this. If Brian wants to go after them civilly, that’s his right.”
“We’ve got another situation with Brian right now.”
He didn’t elaborate, but I could tell it wasn’t good. “What?”
“I got a call from your newspaper down there. They had a tip Brian is dirty-he’s been dealing and using drugs.”
I scowled at the phone. “Oh, for Christ’s sake. But they wouldn’t identify who tipped them, right?”
“No.”
“Come on, Emile. You use a paper to smear someone, because you know they won’t reveal their source. You’re not actually moving on this, are you? Give the kid a break.”
“I don’t have any choice. If I ignore it, they’ll start yelling about a cover-up. Besides, I think I got it licked. I told Brian about it, and he volunteered for a urine test and a polygraph, then and there. He’s already in Waterbury, doing both at the state lab. They said they’d let me know by late this afternoon, maybe sooner. With that in my hand, I can tell the paper to piss off, no pun intended.”
It was a hopefulness I distrusted. I didn’t believe for a moment that Norm Bouch’s conversion and Brian Padget’s latest hurdle weren’t connected, and I was tempted to call the paper myself to see if a little personal pressure might not yield better results. Using the press to bolster the us-versus-them mania Emily Doyle had demonstrated earlier made me furious. I didn’t know Brian Padget, but I knew for a certainty that if he wasn’t showing some of Emily’s attitude by now, he was missing some major vital functions.
I kept such thoughts to myself, however, and told Latour I’d be at his building at two.
I opted to use the Bellows Falls Police Department’s cramped, sterile interrogation room to interview the Bouches rather than Latour’s more spacious office, to help drive home my dissatisfaction with the latest turn of events. Not that my opinion carried any weight, of course. If the Bouches officially withdrew their accusation, my job was over, and since the insult was against the PD, they and Padget became the injured parties, and it was up to them to file the appropriate charges. But I was angry, and I wanted to show it the only way I was officially allowed. I didn’t believe in Norm’s contrition. His and Jan’s appearance today was to be another act, and his pretending not to know about her and Brian’s affair was at the heart of it. Unfortunately, I was now a bystander-a spectator to Norm’s next move.
Latour and I were already seated at the interrogation room’s bare table when an officer escorted in Jan and Norm Bouch. Unsmiling, I removed my recorder from my pocket, laid it on the smooth surface between us, and, as they settled into seats opposite, I pushed the Record button.
“Police officers Latour and Gunther interviewing Jan and Norman Bouch in the Bellows Falls Police Department, the latter two people being here of their own free will.” I checked my watch and added the time and date of the meeting.
I clasped the fingers of both hands before me and rested them lightly on the tabletop, watching our guests closely. Jan looked terrible-wan, tired, her eyes puffy and bloodshot, her hair dirty and uncombed. She sat slumped in her chair, staring into space. Norm, by contrast, was predictably pleased with himself, his head tilted back, a small smile working hard to lie still.
“It’s my understanding you are here for an official retraction of allegations you previously made against Officer Brian Padget of this department. Is that correct?” I asked.
Norm unleashed his smile now-failing at a look of embarrassed guilt. “Yeah. Jan and I feel terrible about what we done. I got mad at Brian and got my wife to say things that didn’t happen.”
I ignored the obvious bait. “So there was no conversation between Officer Padget and your wife in which Officer Padget made disparaging comments of a sexual nature?”
“Right-nothing happened. At least not that way. Brian’s been screwing around with my wife, but I guess that’s our problem, and we’re doing our best to sort it out. We shouldn’t have done what we did, and we’re real sorry we put Brian in a pickle.”
I sat back and crossed my arms, knowing my face was several shades redder than it had been moments earlier. Latour sat awkwardly still as a long silence filled the room, knowing the spotlight had unexpectedly put him on center stage.
Norm Bouch had made his move. He’d ended a cock-and-bull story he’d hoped would get Padget fired but which was falling apart fast, and had rendered moot the internal investigation that had put me in his face. With the same stroke, by seemingly letting slip what he had about Jan and Brian Padget, he’d also opened a can of worms which Latour, Padget, Shippee, and others would be forced to deal with in full public scrutiny.
And there was an additional bonus to this new strategy-if open humiliation seemed a step down from getting Padget fired, there was always that anonymous phone call the paper had asked Emile about.
Latour cleared his throat after a pause. “Mrs. Bouch, is this true, what your husband just said about you and Brian Padget?”
Still staring off into space, she barely nodded without comment.
“Speak up,” I ordered roughly. “We need this on tape.”
“Yes,” she said softly.
“What is the nature of your relationship with Officer Padget?” Latour continued, sounding as if he’d be far happier in a dentist’s chair.
“We were… Are lovers.”
“For how long?”
“A couple of months maybe.”
“And your husband was aware of it all that time?” I asked, hoping to dampen Norm’s moment of glory.
“I found out just before I accused Padget of harassment,” he said quickly, cutting off his wife as she opened her mouth.
“Why did you invent the harassment story?” I persisted, more for the record now.
“I wanted to hurt Padget for ruining my marriage. I thought that would do it. I know it was wrong, but I was real mad. Later, I realized what I’d done.”
“Because we were about to prove you’d made the whole thing up?”
“No, no. Because it was wrong. I’m an emotional guy, and I can fly off the handle. You seen me do that. I’m not proud of it, but that’s why we’re here-to set things right.”
Which brought Latour back to a concern of his from the start-and a major factor in determining Padget’s fate. “Mrs. Bouch, when you and Brian Padget were together, was he ever in uniform?”