Latour looked up, as if startled anyone would be asking him anything. “They’re best friends.”
“Great,” Tony muttered. “I should’ve known.”
I turned back to Derby. “Given the sensitivity, wouldn’t that almost constitute a conflict of interest?”
“Close enough,” he agreed, “which leaves the State Police.”
“Who don’t know the players, much less what they’re up to.”
“Joe-” Tony began, but I cut him off, still addressing Derby. “I’d like to run this case. I’ve been in it from the start, our department has a vested interest, and I could hit the ground running, instead of wasting time briefing some other agency.”
Derby had picked up on Tony’s misgivings. “I don’t know. Cutting out the task force makes sense. A Brattleboro officer running a Bellows Falls criminal case is stretching it. The press would make it look like a bunch of local cops were bending the rules to hide something.”
“Not if that local cop was working for the attorney general’s office. That would make it look sanctified by God.”
A stunned silence met my proposal, allowing me to explain. “I haven’t just been running an internal on Brian Padget. Early on, I made a connection between Norm Bouch and Jasper Morgan, the young doper who mugged Lavoie and stole his gun early this summer. According to a woman I interviewed in Lawrence, who knew Morgan and Bouch a few years ago, Morgan is part of a drug network Bouch has established all across Vermont, mostly run by underage teenagers. Morgan was his local lieutenant, charged with establishing an organized local cell. Our own intelligence already knew about that part-we’d heard Morgan had made serious inroads into the regional market. That was the primary reason I wanted to talk to him the night he ran. The woman in Lawrence told me Bouch planned to establish similar cells all along both interstates, specifically in Brattleboro, Bellows Falls, where Bouch himself would presumably run the show, and in Barre and Burlington-all towns big enough to have a population of eager customers.”
Derby was shaking his head slightly but still hadn’t formulated a response. I headed him off with more. “If all that’s true, and I have no reason to doubt it, we’re talking about a case that touches down in at least three different counties, more if Bouch has reached beyond the towns I mentioned. That means a different State’s Attorney for each county, with different staffs, different courts, and a growing crowd of interested parties all muscling each other for room at the front, none of which would change if the State Police were running the case. The attorney general’s office, on the other hand, has jurisdiction over the whole state. It’s got a huge staff by comparison to yours and several full-time investigators to help build a case. Not only that, but it specializes in public corruption cases, which by definition fits what we got to a T.”
“And also shows off the biggest hole in your sales pitch,” Tony said, a veteran of such jurisdictional shell games. “Our case concerns Brian Padget not Norm Bouch. It’s Padget who pissed hot. All Bouch did was get angry at his wife’s philandering and try to get even-and that’s past history.”
Derby was about to add his two cents when I held up both hands. “Okay, okay. Bear with me here. It’s conjecture, but if we always had absolute proof from the start, we’d be out of business, right? First off, I messed up with the internal investigation. I went at it like I do with a regular case, with my eyes and ears working like vacuum cleaners. I should have gone in focusing only on whether the charges against Padget were true or not-period-but I didn’t. As a result, I learned a lot more about the Bouches than I might have, along with a few of Norm’s habits, the relevant one being his manipulation of women. The Lawrence woman I mentioned started out as Bouch’s lover. Jasper Morgan, then a wet-nosed teenager, walked in on them by mistake one night. The woman’s admittedly a little on the randy side, so she invited Jasper to jump in with them.”
I was interrupted by the expected snorts of derision. “The point is,” I pursued, “Bouch not only went along, he became Jasper’s teacher. That’s part of his appeal to these kids-there’re no taboos. He’s a natural at winning them over. He used this woman, who’s not complaining, to turn Jasper into a crony. My feeling is that he’s using his wife right now to compromise Padget, even though she’s not too happy about it.”
I paused a moment to let them protest, but to my surprise no one said a word. I was gaining, I hoped. “I’m not saying Padget and Jan Bouch maybe didn’t fall for each other initially. Those things happen-she’s young, pretty, unhappy; he’s the right age, a Dudley Do-Right, and probably given to every young cop’s urge to save the world. I think Norm’s first reaction-to squeal on the affair to get Padget in trouble-was straight from the gut. He was pissed off. But with this new wrinkle, with Padget’s urine coming up positive, especially after he volunteered for the test himself, I smell a rat, and I bet it’s Norm Bouch. I don’t know how, but I’d be willing to lay down money that Bouch is still involved in Padget’s problems.”
“Based on what?” Derby asked.
“Bouch’s attitude, mostly. First, he’s madder than hell-cheated on by his wife. He gets her to file a complaint against the boyfriend. The Bellows Falls sergeant who gets that call blows it off temporarily, already knowing what’s really going on and hoping it’ll take care of itself. That angers Norm even more. He calls Emile here and demands action, threatening God knows what. That’s when Emile calls Tony, and I get the nod to do the internal. But they flub their story-Jan blows her lines, Norm scrambles to cover up, and by the time I get the chance to corner her all alone, he knows he’s dropped the ball. Faced with a false accusation charge, he beats a fast retreat, says he invented the whole thing because he was angry, and begs forgiveness, which is granted.”
I leaned forward in my chair to emphasize the next point. “But it was the way he did it that got my attention. He should’ve been shitting bricks when he walked in to retract everything he’d said. He was the one in trouble now. The BFPD could file against him, Padget could sue him for civil damages, and maybe more important to a man like Bouch, he could lose face-which is something teenagers pay a lot of attention to. And yet he was cocky as hell, could barely keep from laughing. At the time, I thought it was because he was about to turn the tables on us, putting the affair between his wife and Padget officially on record-a maneuver that still left Padget humiliated and in trouble with his boss, and pretty much pulled the teeth on any reprisal the department might have threatened. That’s why I thought he was so pleased with himself. But as soon as I heard about the anonymous tip claiming Padget was a drug user, I knew Norm was still at work. The fact that the alleged corruption involved drugs, was aimed at Padget, and came right after Bouch’s retraction, convinced me that Norm had to be lurking somewhere behind Padget’s current problems.”
I sat back, almost done. “Every instinct I have tells me that the Padget case will lead us to Norm Bouch. It might even be the only shot we get at Bouch, who’s been clever and careful enough to operate without once getting his hands slapped, except,” I emphasized for effect, “when it comes to women. The only time Emile’s troops have ever gotten close to nailing Norm, it’s been over a woman. Padget fooling around with Jan opened a wound in Bouch’s pride, and Bouch has reacted accordingly. I’m hoping he’s also shown us the one weak spot in his armor.”
I fell silent, drained and slightly baffled at my own enthusiasm for a plan I had only half sketched out before sitting down at this meeting.
There was some shuffling by the others. Derby was the first to break the silence. “Tony? Could you spare him for this?”
“I don’t think I’ll have to. This ain’t gonna fly.”
“But if it did,” Derby pushed.
“I guess. But we’d have to play up the Brattleboro connection to satisfy the powers-that-be. Otherwise, they’re going to start saying I’ve got enough money to staff other departments.”