She and Willy Kunkle, the fourth member of my squad, were waiting in my cramped cubicle of an office to give me an update. It had now been twelve hours since we’d found the body on the tracks.
“Phase one of the canvass is complete,” Sammie said. “We hit every apartment or business that has a window overlooking the scene, and in all but about four cases, we found somebody to talk to. The ones with nobody home will be followed up, and where we were told a family member or whoever wasn’t in when we visited, we took their names so we can chase ’em down later. But it’s not looking too promising, and from what Ron told me about your talk with Edith Rudd, you already got the basic gist. Nobody saw anything except three nondescript guys in a car with no lights. The victim always looked either dead, drugged, or unconscious, the car was always described as a dark sedan with no visible license plates, and nobody heard a single sound during the whole routine-no shouts, no shots, no nothing. Like they were ghosts.”
“Or just slightly better at their job than the average idiot we deal with,” Willy added sourly.
Perpetually down at the mouth, hypercritical, and dismissive of everyone else’s efforts, Willy Kunkle made an effort to be unpleasant. An alcoholic veteran of the Vietnam War who’d abused his wife until she ditched him and neglected his job until he was almost fired, he’d been ironically turned around-somewhat-by a sniper bullet on a case some ten years ago. Now saddled with a withered, crippled left arm, whose hand he kept stuffed in his trousers pocket, he’d taken his smoldering rage and focused it against the people he was being paid to pursue. About as antithetical to the concept of community policing as Tony Brandt’s worst nightmare, Kunkle nevertheless had a knack for getting at least one segment of our population to cooperate-successfully enough that none of us wanted to know his methods. Strangely, given his otherwise rebellious personality, Willy could also exhibit a fierce loyalty and had joined Sammie in risking his job for me back when the Attorney General’s office was out to end my career. But where her motivation had been to place justice above the law, his had simply been to give the system a kick in the ass.
Well used to his one-liners, Sammie continued unperturbed. “The other point everyone pretty much agrees on is the timing. They put the body on the tracks about half an hour before the train came through.”
“What about the train?” I asked. “Did the crew see anything?” She shook her head. “I called. It was news to them. They’ve kicked off their own internal investigation, and the feds’ll probably get pulled into it ’cause of the jurisdictional thing. But I got the engineer on the line before he’d been told to clam up, and he says he didn’t see a thing.”
“Probably drunk, stoned, asleep, or all three,” Willy commented. “Those guys are amazing-overpaid, underworked, and total losers.”
This time Sammie ignored the stupidity of the remark but did address the subject matter. “He did sound nervous-maybe ’cause he was under scrutiny, maybe ’cause he did foul up. They are supposed to keep one eye on the track, especially at crossings and in congested areas.”
“Did you get the feeling any of the witnesses you interviewed might’ve been playing dumb?” I asked.
Sam began shaking her head, but Willy cut in with a laugh. “Dumb, maybe, but definitely good-looking. I bet she’d like to question him a whole lot more privately.”
Sammie hit his good arm with the back of her hand-a solid blow that made me wince in sympathy. Kunkle just kept laughing.
“Asshole,” she muttered.
I silently raised my eyebrows at her.
She turned bright red-a first, to my knowledge. “We interviewed four guys who were having an all-night poker game. One of them saw the car out the window on his way to the bathroom. He didn’t see the body being dumped and only remembered it because the headlights were out.” She glared at Willy and added, “It’s a total dead end.”
“That’s not what you told me,” he said with a leer.
She made to hit him again, but this time he quickly moved out of range, fast and smooth.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “Enough. What about my question?”
“I don’t think so,” she said firmly, fighting to regain her composure. “But we haven’t finished yet. Could be one of the people we’re still looking for is missing for good reason.”
I waved toward the door. “All right. Put it all down on paper. And let me know what develops.”
I listened to them arguing as they disappeared into the labyrinth of sound-absorbent panels that divided the squad room into tiny private work areas. In the years I’d known her, I’d never once seen Sammie refer to, or keep company with, any male companion. By all appearances, she’d handed her life over to the department, to such an extent that I’d even recommended she acquire some outside interests. She’d looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.
But it was an interesting turn of events, if Willy was even remotely on target, which from Sammie’s reaction I was guessing he was. Not only had she finally succumbed to some man’s charms, but she’d done so at the drop of a hat, and in the middle of a murder investigation.
I’d never doubted her loyalty, her competence, or her ability. I’d had occasion to question her judgment, although not in a long while. And I definitely wished her some happiness in her private life. What concerned me right now was that this new and sudden heartthrob had been found at a midweek, all-night poker game-not an inspiring sign.
I hoped she knew what she was getting into, and made a mental note to discreetly keep tabs on her, as both a boss and a friend.
3
It was four o’clock when Patrick Mason showed up from the Agency of Natural Resources, looking tired and a little bored, as if reluctantly prepared for yet another delicate jurisdictional dance with a hypersensitive police department. Traditionally, cops can’t get rid of hazardous materials cases fast enough. But possession of any case is instinctively territorial in this profession, so yielding control-even of something he doesn’t want-can sometimes stick in the point man’s craw.
I therefore did my best to set all such misgivings to rest, meeting Mason out in the hallway by the dispatch window where he’d announced himself. “Thanks for getting here so fast. I’m looking forward to working with you,” I said, shaking his hand warmly.
Although seemingly in his twenties, with a smooth, pink face and enviably thick black hair, he had the look of a man who’d been sweet-talked before.
He raised his eyebrows slightly. “You are?”
I had been assigned to enough special units in my time to appreciate the skepticism. I smiled at him. “You can draw your own conclusions later.” I motioned toward the door he’d just used and brandished the overcoat I was carrying in my hand. “We might as well start with the truck. It’s still parked where we found it.”
We traded small talk on the drive to Bickford’s, and I discovered that Pat Mason had much the same background ascribed to his much-maligned colleagues on the non enforcement side of ANR-privileged upbringing, environmental studies in college, some Greenpeace-style early political activism. Yet he held those very colleagues largely in contempt. He described them as gung-ho at inventing new rules and regs, tucked away in their offices but having no idea how or whether those edicts were working-and having little sympathy for the tiny squad trying to enforce them. I also found out he was in his late thirties and had been investigating for ANR for over ten years. He’d just been transferred from the northern part of the state, which explained why we’d never met.
Mason brightened when we pulled up next to the battered Mack truck, however, seeing in its appearance, I guessed, something of what a doctor must detect in a sick patient-the opportunity to get down to some real work.