Ron stepped aside and let me in. The room was what we’d come to expect from the neighborhood-dark, stuffy, unclean, stripped of all but the essentials, and filled with the debris of a human being with little care for himself or his environment. Enhancing the flavor, the building’s heating system was still in overdrive, making the whole place feel like a sauna perched over a garbage dump. There was a jagged two-foot by four-foot hole in the side wall, which Conyer had created as a back door.
Willy stuck his head through the hole and smiled at me. “Hey, there, boss. Decide to join us before noon?”
“Drop it.”
He laughed. “Oh-oh. Joe’s grumpy. Must’ve not gotten laid.”
He didn’t know how close that cut. “What’ve you found so far, Willy?”
“Mostly just the by-products of a disgusting lifestyle, but we haven’t been at it long.”
“What’s the story on the three rooms? How was he able to cut through the walls with nobody knowing?”
“I checked into that,” Ron said from behind me. “It wasn’t coincidence they were empty, like we thought last night. Conyer rented the other two under assumed names.”
I looked at him closely. “How long ago?”
He glanced at his notepad. “January eighth.”
“Two days after Resnick was killed,” I said. “Anyone check if he had a bank account?”
Willy laughed. “Yeah. I don’t think he was into banks. I got his assets in a suitcase here. Something under five grand.”
“We checked the local branches,” Ron elaborated, “and we put it out on the wire. But he could’ve used an alias, like he did for the other two rooms. We might never find out for sure.”
I turned back to Willy. “That money in new bills or old?”
“Bit of both.”
“New ones banded or loose?”
“Loose.”
“Check those for prints. If we get lucky, maybe Conyer’s contractor left a fat thumbprint on each as he shelled ’em out. Who’s working the friends and relatives angle?” I asked.
Willy’s voice took on a slight edge, no doubt matching my own. “Sam. She could probably use some help, if you’ve finished busting our chops.”
I got the hint.
I tried clearing my mind on the short drive to the office, freeing it of last night’s shooting, of my conversation with Gail, and of my overall frustration. I knew I’d been overly terse with Ron and Willy. With all of us under pressure and in need of sleep, I was supposed to be setting an example of grace in the face of adversity.
Sammie was at her desk, poring over Ron’s notes. I sat in her guest chair, not bothering to remove my coat.
She glanced up. “You look beat.”
So much for that effort. “I’m okay. Willy told me you were chasing down Conyer’s family and associates.”
She pulled a sheet of paper from the file before her. “Yeah. He spent most of his time with the twenty-something crowd-big on bar-hopping, hell-raising, and recreational dope.”
“Looks like he was paid to do in Resnick. Willy found a suitcase full of cash.”
She stared with renewed interest at the contents of her file. “Huh-well, if he was the lead man, it sure doesn’t sound like the guy I’ve been reading about. One report describes him as a born underling-not a doer. According to his criminal records, he acted out now and then-assault and battery, aggravated assault, destruction of private property-but he never went over the top, and he always got busted in a group, as if he couldn’t be aggressive on his own, or needed someone else to lead the way.”
“So maybe he was at the bottom of a three-man totem pole.”
She sat back, looking thoughtful. “That’s what I was thinking. He could’ve stolen that hammer to qualify as one of the team-like a rite of passage.”
“Implying a big brother relationship somewhere,” I mused.
Sammie played the devil’s advocate. “On the flip side, he did a pretty good Rambo imitation last night. Could be he finally grew some balls and put a gang together-maybe the Mob paid him to hit one of their own.”
I shook my head. “I think he was being manipulated and felt he was in too deep to get out. That’s why he came out shooting. He must’ve been scared shitless-making holes in the walls, keeping his money in a suitcase, and sleeping three apartments over. When a small-timer becomes a murderer, he usually makes a mess of it-he doesn’t put together a complicated deal like what we’re trying to figure out. I think you’re right-someone was pulling his string.” I pointed my chin toward the paperwork. “So what’s your plan?”
“Check out the family-and his erstwhile playmates. He has two brothers who live in town. Another died of an overdose in Boston two years ago.”
“You want me to take them?”
She handed me one of her sheets. “Be my guest.”
Brian Conyer worked at the C amp;S Grocers warehouse north of town, an enormous enterprise, one of the largest suppliers of groceries in the Northeast and, depending on the year, the biggest business in the state of Vermont. Trucks came and went from the warehouse around the clock, serviced by a small army of loaders, stackers, freezer personnel, hi-lo operators, forklift drivers, and dozens of others. Given the constant turnover, the lack of intense prehiring screening, and the low expectations from both management and employees that the floor jobs had any upward mobility, the whole setup was predisposed to attract a certain slice of the population. Several of our customers had lain low at C amp;S at one time or another, which made it, paradoxically, one of the police department’s bigger allies. By offering jobs to people who might otherwise go into business for themselves, the company helped keep a lid on the crime rate.
According to a computer check I made before driving to C amp;S, Billy’s brother didn’t fit that special category, however. He was like the majority of workers there: high-school-educated, locally based, low-income, and, in all probability, with few illusions that the future would ever look any different.
I found him stacking pallets in the three-story-tall freezer-big enough to fit several houses-dressed in overalls so heavily insulated he looked ready to attack the Antarctic. I made no apologies for escorting him outside the building into the winter cold and around a corner that shielded us from the explosive belches of a row of eighteen-wheelers. If anything, I figured it would be warmer than where I’d found him.
He took off a glove, revealing a large, muscular, scarred hand, dug into his overalls, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He didn’t offer me one. He was broad-shouldered, deep-chested, and apparently not given to idle chitchat. “I guess this is about Billy.”
It wasn’t a question, and it wasn’t phrased with any great interest.
“Yes,” I admitted. “When did you hear about it?”
“The radio-this morning. During coffee break.”
“When did you come on?”
“Midnight.” He inhaled deeply and then mixed smoke and cold breath vapor into a cloud before him. He answered my questioning look by adding, “I’m working overtime right now. ’Nother four hours.”
“You haven’t called any of your family?”
He didn’t answer at first, which I assumed was for my benefit. I sensed Brian prided himself on being tough. “My brother Tim phoned. To let me know.”
“How was he taking it?”
Conyer shrugged. “He wasn’t crying, if that’s what you mean.”
“Not a close-knit bunch?”
This time, he smiled ruefully. “My folks didn’t work real hard in that department. My dad beat my mom, and we four boys beat on each other. Pretty basic.”
“Did you know what Billy was up to lately?”
“Nothin’ good.”
“I mean for a fact.”
He inhaled again, held it a moment, and blew out a smoke ring.
“For a fact? I didn’t know and I didn’t care.”
Timothy Conyer was in the employees’ break room at the back of Sam’s, once Brattleboro’s largest Army-Navy store, now its largest “outdoor outfitters”-a semantic concession to changing sensitivities. It was still a remarkable place, jammed with everything from wool shirts and dress slacks to ammunition and Swiss army knives. And it still had a section of surplus military goods. There had never been a time when I didn’t have something from Sam’s in my closet.