His features contorted into a dark scowl, but again Manning interrupted him. “Charlie, think about what’s happening here. It’s not about poor maintenance, or sloppy records, or playing shell games with your trucks. A man’s head was crushed under a locomotive. The rig he’d been driving was loaded with haz mat, probably supplied by the Mob. I’m not saying you know anything about that, but if you don’t think we can’t use it to drag your butt in front of a judge, you’ve been living on another planet.”
“I don’t know anything,” he complained, spreading his arms wide. “I swear. You saw what I got in the shop. The leases I sign out sometimes don’t come back for years. The customers do the inspections, the maintenance, and everything else. I just send ’em a check, or deduct it from their lease. Somebody wants a truck, and I got a lease running out, I send ’em to where it is and do the paperwork by mail. I got something like twenty rigs out there, and I lease over half of those myself, for Christ’s sake. I never see any of ’em till some shit like this comes down.”
“You’ve had enough time to check your records since one of my men called you,” I said. “Who did you contract that truck out to?”
Timson shook his head. “I told you then, I don’t got it to look up. I can’t find those records. I did try-looked all over the place, but you can see what…”
His voice trailed off as Peter grasped the edge of his desk, and pivoted it to one side as if he were opening a door, exposing Timson on his creaky chair as though he were a hedgehog perched on a stool.
“What the hell’re you doing?” he asked nervously, grasping the chair’s arms.
Manning stepped into the void the desk had filled and stood so close to Timson their knees were almost touching. Timson’s head cranked far backward to look up into Manning’s face.
“You can’t do this, you know?” His voice sounded strangled.
Manning ignored him. “I thought we had an understanding, Charlie. We’re investigating a homicide, and you’re a member of the public, eager to help us do our job.” He pulled a long legal document and laid it on the other man’s lap.
“That’s a duces tecum warrant to search these premises for any paperwork concerning that truck. It’ll give you all the cover you need to hide from the people you’re really worried about. We were just hoping you’d spare us stripping this place of every scrap of paper in it-including all licenses and operating permits-and taking the next six months to carefully go through it, looking for what you could hand over in two minutes.”
“I’d sooner lose some money than my life,” he said.
Manning was unsympathetic. “We issue the right press release, you won’t have that choice. Your playmates don’t like messes, Charlie, and you ain’t one of the family, so to speak.”
Timson’s face darkened. “Get out of my way, asshole,” he growled at Peter, trying to summon a few shreds of self-respect.
Manning stepped back. Timson got to his feet and then surprised us by lumbering up onto his desk and reaching for one of the acoustic tiles overhead. He popped it back with his fist, groped around its edges for a moment, and retrieved a single brown manila envelope.
He handed it to me before climbing back down. “There. That’s all of it. And you found it on your own.”
Manning smiled. “You got anything else interesting up there?”
“Fuck you.”
I opened the envelope and studied its contents.
“Could you do that someplace else?” he asked peevishly. “I got things to do.”
“It says here the truck was last leased to Katahdin Trucking of Portland, Maine. Any chance that even exists?”
His answer for once sounded reasonable. “I’m supposed to know that?”
Back in the car, Manning indicated the envelope. “That going to do you any good?”
“Not much,” I admitted. “Katahdin Trucking is probably only the second layer in God knows how many more, and I bet the deeper we dig, the harder it’ll be to find even this much.
“It’s not totally useless, though,” I added. “At least we know we’re dealing with something organized.” I paused and thought once more of Jim Reynolds’s open filing cabinet filled with old cases.
“And maybe something with history.”
My next meeting with Jim Reynolds didn’t come at my instigation, however. Shortly after my trip to Massachusetts, I was summoned to Tony Brandt’s office.
“Run down what we’ve got on the senator,” he requested after I’d settled into one of his chairs.
“Not much yet,” I admitted. “But suspicions are growing. His name comes up every time we turn around. Somebody’s calling Katz, too, trying to link Reynolds to both illegal dumping-and by inference Phil Resnick’s death-and to Brenda Croteau.”
Brandt raised his eyebrows. “Anything to it?”
“Don’t know. It might be the same people who got us all excited about the Crown Vic-playing political hardball. I have Ron looking into Reynolds’s past, but so far he’s come up empty. I’ll keep at it, though.”
Brandt studied me a moment. “You sound like there might be something there.”
I gave him an equivocating wobble of the hand, tilting it back and forth. “It’s more like an itch I can’t reach. You heard about the one solid connection we did find between the two cases, right?”
Brandt thought a moment. “Yeah-what’s his name? The poker player who was also one of Brenda’s customers.”
“Frankie Harris. I’m just thinking that if there’s one, there could be others. After all, we still don’t know what we’re dealing with here. The Owen Tharp case looks simple enough, but with Resnick I have no idea. Three men execute a Mob-connected illegal dumper from New Jersey on the railroad tracks in the middle of the night, using a dummied-up copy of a car belonging to one of our state senators. What the hell’s that all about? And I can’t get that office break-in out of my head, either. Unfortunately, about all I’ve got are questions,” I paused a moment, watching his face. “Why do you ask?”
“Reynolds’s Judiciary Committee is about to vote out his bill-they’re taking testimony from supporters and giving it as much armor as they can before sending it out into the world. I wanted to know if we were sitting on some smoking bomb that would make that whole exercise a waste of time.”
“Not that I know of,” I answered carefully, adding, “Why would we care anyway?”
Brandt gave me an enigmatic smile. “Ah. Well, it’s not just what they’re doing in Montpelier-it’s what I’ve been asked to do for them, and where I’m hoping you’ll help me out. Reynolds is being pretty careful with this bill, despite all the ‘bold and radical’ crap in the press. For one, he made sure it was introduced by his committee and not by him alone-which gives it more clout-and now he wants to make sure the same committee gives it a dress rehearsal with as many tough questions as they can raise. Also, I think that by dragging that process out just a little, Reynolds is hoping to orchestrate it so that the other Senate committees that get to consider it won’t have much time to do so. My guess is he’s shooting to have the bill reach the House just before Town Meeting Day in March, so the speaker and his minions will get the message on the village level that the people are behind it.”
I appreciated the civics lesson but dreaded whatever was lurking behind it. I waited silently, not making it too easy for him, knowing I wouldn’t like what I was about to hear.
I didn’t. Brandt cleared his throat slightly and said, “Anyhow, long story short, they asked me-along with a bunch of other people-to be a committee witness. I was hoping you’d go in my place. I was told it would be pretty informal. More like a think-tank session.”
I sat stock-still for a moment, analyzing my emotions. It was a favor he was asking of me, not something I had to do. But it was coming from a man who’d stuck his neck out for me many times in the past, and whom I considered a good friend. Finally, much as I disliked most politics, I was also-like a lot of people-a little curious about its workings.