"Sign in and have a seat."
Sam smiled brightly and flashed her badge. "Understandable mistake. We're here to see Dave Snyder."
The receptionist reacted with a deadpan "Don't sign in and have a seat."
Snyder, when he appeared a couple of minutes later, was a small, intense man with a hard handshake and a ready smile, who ushered them down a tangle of narrow hallways, up a half flight of stairs, and finally into a truly minute office with not even an air vent for circulation, much less a window. So much for the Italian villa.
The three of them conducted a facsimile minuet getting seated without bumping into each other, after which Willy, with his usual grace, opened up with a small conversational ice breaker.
"Christ. Either somebody really hates you or you need lessons on sucking up."
Snyder laughed. "I spend about an hour a day in here. It's actually kind of restful. And nobody ever bothers me."
Even the walls were blank, completely free of pictures, calendars, or a bulletin board.
"Go figure," Willy agreed.
Snyder fired up the computer monitor on his desk and addressed Sam. "You wanted to know about Andy Griffis?"
"Yeah," she told him. "He was arrested by the Brattleboro PD, but then we let him drop off the radar-until we heard he'd committed suicide, of course," she added quickly, addressing Snyder's look of surprise.
He nodded. "I was going to ask if you knew." He waved a hand at the screen. "Well, I don't know. To be honest, the guy who actually handled this case is gone, so I'm pretty much the tour guide here. I never met Griffis. What're you after?"
Sam took pity on the man, since she was in much the same boat, given Joe's vagueness. "Tell us the overall first, then maybe we can get more specific."
Snyder slowly began scrolling down and reading, highlighting his findings in a descriptive monologue. "Okay. Let's see. Wow. Talk about no luck-first-time offender and he goes straight to jail. Oh, okay. I get it, kind of. Proprietor gets hurt during a burglary, and she's an old lady to boot. Media must've been all over that. Still, tough for him. Got five to ten with all but three suspended. Bet he wasn't expecting that."
He hit a few more commands and moved elsewhere within his database. "Started out jail in Springfield," he resumed, "then got moved to St. Albans. Indicators are he was generally compliant and cooperative. In her notes, the prison case worker mentions a depressive period toward the end, basically lasting till he was released. Don't know what that was about. Probably just bummed. Our interactions with him afterward were routine. He got a job working up north first, around Thetford. His family has a bunch of businesses there. Says here he was a mechanic. Wasn't long before he headed back to Brattleboro, though, which is how we wound up with him. According to this, he said things weren't working out in Thetford. That happens often enough, where the family shakes out after one of them comes back from inside. Maybe that's what happened here."
He started reading more carefully, his own interest growing. "We picked up his check-ins," he resumed, "which he seems to have met. His conditions weren't too onerous-pretty much the usual. Oh, I was wrong; he did miss a check-in, right at the end. After that, nothing. He was found hanging from the crossbar in his apartment closet after he failed to show up at work two days in a row."
"He leave a note?" Willy asked.
"Doesn't say here, but that's no surprise. We get notification of a parolee's death, but the local PD and the ME's office have the actual details. You'll have to ask them."
"Any mention of close friends?" Sam asked.
"There's a Beth Ann Agostini," Snyder read. "Her name pops up in the last few months. Lives on Canal." He quickly scribbled her address down on a pad, adding, "Or used to. These folks move around a lot."
"That's it?" Willy asked incredulously.
Snyder was almost apologetic. "Yeah. Griffis wasn't adjusting all that well after he got out, but he kept within our guidelines." He sat back and studied them. "He was a probationer, not a parolee. That would've put him on a tighter leash. But on probation, as long as you check in and don't get caught doing anything foolish, you're part of a big pool of people. It's easy to fall through the cracks."
He passed his hand through his hair abruptly, his frustration showing, and added, "We get a lot of flack for trying to keep people out of prison, or letting them out on conditions too soon and too easily. But, believe me, it ain't high school, and some of these younger guys get really screwed up. Always drives me nuts when people go on and on about more jail cells and tougher sentences when they have no clue what they're talking about."
Sam and Willy didn't respond, both of them just staring back at him.
Snyder smiled awkwardly. "Sorry. Guess that was a little overboard. No offense, I hope."
Willy dragged out his response, making a mockery of it. "Naaaah."
Sam pulled out a subpoena she'd secured just to be on the safe side. "Any chance we could have a printout of the case notes?"
As if defeated by some inner debate, Dave Snyder merely placed the subpoena on his desk and set to work at the keyboard.
Leo remained in the ICU, looking increasingly reduced by his standing retinue of monitors and IV hangers clustered around like skeletal mourners. And now he spent all his time asleep.
"I thought he was getting better," his mother said softly, sitting in the waiting room, her shoulders slumped.
Leo's primary physician crouched down before her wheelchair to better make eye contact, a gesture Joe appreciated. His name was Karl Weisenbeck, and so far, he'd been attentive, honest, and compassionate, seeking them out more often than they'd asked for him over the previous few days.
For Joe, the man's soothing presence was doubly welcome. Not only had Leo's downturn come as a surprise, but so had Gail's unannounced return. In fact, Dr. Weisenbeck had been talking to her alone upon their entrance, creating in Joe's mind an awkward jarring, as if he'd accidentally walked in on something inappropriate. Given the multiple emotions he was then balancing, the addition of this unusually loaded one had been a shock.
Not that her being here was a bad idea. The greeting between the two women had made that clear, reminding him of a loving daughter and mother after a long separation. Now, especially given Weisenbeck's announcement of Leo's reversal, Joe had to concede that his mother's coping ability was strengthened by Gail's presence. Over the years, these women had become close friends, driving home Joe's occasional sensation of being the odd man out.
None of which mattered at the moment, he forced himself to remember as he leaned forward to hear the doctor's explanation.
"It's a delicate time for your son," Weisenbeck was saying. "As you know, he suffered initially from a collapsed lung and flail chest, which is a breaking away of an independent part of the rib cage. The lung issue we resolved pretty easily, but the combination is what made it so difficult for him to breathe, and why we were helping him out with the nasal cannula at first. Unfortunately, the extent of his injuries has now led to what we call shock lung, or more technically, post-traumatic respiratory distress."
There was a small, almost indistinguishable intake of breath by his elderly listener, which prompted the doctor to take her hand in his own before continuing.
"Leo was no longer able to oxygenate his blood on his own, Mrs. Gunther," Weisenbeck said. "Which meant that we had to put him on a respirator."
She nodded slightly. "I understand."
But he wasn't done. "I wish that were the extent of it, but I'm afraid there's more. As a result of the multiple bone fragmentation, Leo's also suffering from fat embolization. This has affected his brain function, among other things, which is why he's asleep for the moment."