Her eyes narrowed angrily. “That was personal. It wasn’t shop.”
“What do you think of Norm Bouch? You were on more calls to his house than anyone.”
She crossed her arms defensively. “So?”
Jon made a show of raising his eyebrows in surprise. “Surely that’s a reasonable question. Dominating husband, abused wife who won’t ever file charges, kids left to fend for themselves. What did you think of all that?”
What I thought was that Jonathon Michael had made a quick study of my briefing about Emily Doyle. He’d painted an approximation of Emily’s own household as a child.
“I think it stinks,” she answered him. “Not that it matters. We’re paid to pick up the pieces after the wife’s been beaten to death, or the kids have been pounded on so bad their bodies are walking proof of it. Even then, the son of a bitch who caused it ends up with a pat on the ass from some judge who doesn’t know shit from Shinola about what’s really going on.”
Jonathon avoided the debate, keeping on course. “Is that what you see happening in the Bouch home?”
“Worse, since we all know Norm deals drugs, too, and got his wife hooked on ’em.”
Jon turned philosophical. “Why do you think that’s been allowed to continue?”
She was animated by now, her suspicions blunted by his drawing her out. “Look at this whole town, for Christ’s sake. It’s full of people like Norm. Maybe not on his scale, but people who live by their own rules, playing the system for all it’s worth. They get paid for their rent, their food, their kids’ education. And then they get tax-free jobs under the counter, buy and sell dope, fuck themselves brainless, and think that’s A-okay. How can we do anything about all that when the same system we’re working for started it in the first place?”
It was a textbook simplification, the embodiment of what I’d been told upon entering Bellows Falls. The hopes and hard work of the citizens struggling against Emily’s complaints were all but lost on her-reduced to occasional articles in a newspaper she barely glanced at.
“But if as you suggest,” Jon prompted her further, “the Norm Bouches of the world are the worst of the bunch, what would you propose for them?”
“The same as for any tactical threat. Target ’em and take ’em out. You can’t do much for most of the rest, but bringing Bouch down would send a big message.” Her face soured. “Unfortunately, not everyone agrees with that approach.”
Jon feigned ignorance. “Who do you mean?”
She looked at us all belligerently. “I know you’re trying to get me to stick my neck out on the chopping block. But the Chief wimped out on this, and I don’t care who knows it. I told him what I told you, but he just wants to retire nice and peaceful. And we’re supposed to keep things quiet in the meantime. Might as well give Bouch a license to operate.”
Jonathon nodded like a psychoanalyst taking notes. “You and Brian talk a lot about this?”
Her face shut down after a quick glimmer of surprise. “Not much.”
He let out a small sigh, feeling he’d circled this spot before. “Thank you, Officer Doyle. We appreciate your time and cooperation.”
She looked confused for a minute, then surprisingly disappointed. She rose awkwardly from her chair, muttered, “Sure,” and walked toward the distant stairs. Greg Davis hesitated and then followed her.
Jonathon Michael and I waited until we could no longer hear their footsteps echoing below us. I rose and went to the old, wavy-glass windows and looked out. The rain cut across the scenery in diagonal sheets, sprinkling the glass with tear-shaped drops.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“Something’s going on,” he admitted, “but I’m damned if I know what.”
“Or what to do about it,” I added.
“Maybe nothing for the moment. Your squad is handling the homicide investigation in Brattleboro all right, aren’t they?”
“Yeah.”
“Then let’s drop this for the moment and go to Burlington.”
Chapter 16
A TRIP FROM BELLOWS FALLS TO BURLINGTON takes about two hours by interstate. It also involves a sweeping natural tour of the state, from the low, rolling piedmont of eastern Vermont, across the dramatic, forested, fortress-like Green Mountains that form the spine of the state and give it its primary identity, to the glacier-carved Champlain Lowlands, from which Lake Champlain stretches, cold and turbulent, to the Adirondacks beyond.
Burlington is the state’s sole metropolis, its largest conglomeration of arts, medicine, education, and commerce, and in the previous century a major freshwater port for materials being shipped to and from nearby Canada. Including the satellite towns dependent upon it, one hundred thousand people live in the area, a fifth of Vermont’s entire population.
It’s been accurately described as a junior Boston-erudite, stimulating, culturally rich, and, with Montreal a short drive away, truly cosmopolitan. Spread over a descending series of low hills leading down to the shores of Lake Champlain, it has an Old World feel to it, accentuated by a preponderance of antique wooden buildings, pedestrian-only market streets, and the occasional governmental monolith. Dominating it all, since the city tilts toward it, is the lake-mysterious, deep, and at the best of times faintly ominous.
Our first stop, fittingly for a city with stylish ambitions, was a restaurant not far from the new police department headquarters-a favorite hangout of that building’s occupants. Spanning the buffer zone between the city’s commercial heart and its rougher, darker, more dangerous Old North End, Bove’s was a supplier of hearty, well-spiced, time-tested food.
A long, high-ceilinged hallway of a building, it had a narrow door and two windows at one end, a serving bar at the other, and ranks of tables and booths in between. The kitchen lay tucked out of sight to the rear.
As Jonathon Michael and I stepped in from the damp outdoors and stood blinking in the relative gloom, we saw the dim outline of an arm waving to us from one of the booths, and heard our names called out in greeting.
The man behind the voice was Paul O’Leary, chief of the Burlington police force, a thirty-year veteran who gave networking its most positive meaning. From the upper echelons of virtually every PD in the state, and many outside it, to the bureaucrats and politicians who controlled all our purse strings, O’Leary knew everyone of consequence. He swam these crowded waters as an informed, friendly presence, working for the betterment of all departments and often interceding when he thought his help could be useful. While some in our profession maligned his sunny enthusiasm as cynical self-service, I’d seen his integrity and intelligence in action more than once and recognized his good humor as genuine. It was reflective of his style that we representatives of three different agencies were meeting in a neutral, convivial setting instead of his office just a few blocks away. This was someone who knew his way around in a turf-conscious business.
He rose as we approached-a small, wiry, animated man with short white hair-and ushered us into the booth, introducing the serious young woman seated opposite him. “Audrey McGowen, Joe Gunther and Jonathon Michael. I figured it was too early for dinner, so I just ordered coffee. That okay?”
The waitress appeared as if by mental telepathy, and we both followed O’Leary’s suggestion. Our host waited until she’d retreated before folding his hands around his cup and looking at us both eagerly. “So, I hear we’re on a chase.”
In a role reversal of a few hours earlier, I began the briefing while Jon silently sipped coffee. O’Leary took it in with nods and occasional smiles; McGowen-Sammie’s friend from the Academy-took notes in a small pad she’d pulled from her pocket.
“So we basically have two priority items that’re relevant to our department,” O’Leary summed up when I’d finished. “Locate Lenny and see if and/or how he connects to Norm Bouch, and discreetly dig into Emily Doyle’s background to check out the same thing. Is that about it?”