Jackson muttered an apology, and Mrs. Morse banged the tabletop loudly. “Now we are in session.”
James Dunn immediately stood up. “Madam Chairman, might I inquire why I was asked to be here? My understanding of the town charter is that executive sessions are held primarily to discuss personnel matters, like salaries and such.”
Luman Jackson, whose own frostiness could rival Dunn’s, cocked an eyebrow and shut Mrs. Morse up just as she opened her mouth to respond. “Mr. State’s Attorney, I can sympathize with your wanting to go back to your office, but to pretend this meeting was called to discuss salaries doesn’t do justice to your imagination. We are here to discuss John Woll, who is not only a town employee, but is also being investigated by your office-”
“And as such not a subject for conversation in a setting like this, at least not with me here,” Dunn finished for him. “If you, Madam Chairman, or anyone else in this room, wants to know what the state’s attorney’s office is doing about John Woll, you will just have to wait until that investigation has been concluded.”
With that, Dunn turned on his heel and left the room, closing the door behind him with a bang. Jackson was looking less and less like the vice-chairman he was, and more like an angry, frustrated caricature carved in stone. We hadn’t been here five minutes, and already the air had enough electricity in it to power the town for a week.
Brandt chose that moment to clear his throat. “Madam Chairman, with the departure of Mr. Dunn, I suggest that any further discussion of John Woll be tabled. As you are aware, the police department has been cut out of that investigation and has handed over all its files to the SA’s office. I’m sure Mr. Nadeau would agree with me that any official discussion of the case without Mr. Dunn might well be treading onto very thin legal ice.”
Mrs. Morse, not bothering to compete verbally, merely pointed her gavel at a pale and nervous Gary Nadeau, who nodded, also without a word.
“Let it be noted that the town attorney is in agreement with the chief,” she intoned, pleased at last to be heard.
Tom Wilson, who was no Richard the Lionhearted but who also disliked Jackson with a passion, raised his hand. “That brings up the advisedness of this entire meeting, actually. Mr. Dunn mentioned the town charter; if indeed we are to deal with personnel matters in any detail, it is my understanding that I as town manager am supposed to be the board’s agent in these matters, and that the board should be called together to discuss such a case only after I’ve completed my own investigation.”
Jackson whacked the table before him in irritation with his open hand. “I’ve had just about enough of this. You bureaucrats can run for cover all you want, but something stinks here, and I intend to find out what it is. I don’t give a rat’s ass what’s in the charter, and nobody’s going to tell me that I can or cannot ask certain questions while the whole goddamn town is falling down like a house of cards.”
“That may be overstating the case a bit,” Gail said levelly from her end of the curved table.
Jackson flared. “Maybe from your vantage point, Miss Zigman, but not all of us share your source of information, or your obvious bias.” He shifted his attention back to the rest of us, allowing Gail to redden angrily more or less in private. “My phone is ringing at all hours of the day and night; I’m getting calls from newspapers in California, for Christ’s sake. ‘Is it true that Brattleboro has become the chute for Massachusetts’s dirty laundry?’ That’s what one of them asked me. That’s not good for business or morale, and by allowing it to continue, it might just become true.”
Gail sailed back in. “What’s the point, Mr. Vice-Chairman?”
It seemed to me Jackson’s frustration was so real he could barely give it voice. Despite my antipathy for the man, I began to feel slightly sorry for him. “The point is: I want to know what’s happening here. I hear our building inspector is being investigated for no good reason. I hear one of our most eminent citizens is suspected of fraudulent financial dealings. I hear a perfectly respectable businessman had all his records removed by the police, again for no apparent reason. There’ve been shootings, high-speed chases, and now a DWI involving a cop who’s also suspected of murder. It sounds like our police department is both corrupt and stupid. And the result, I might add, will be more lawsuits than this town has ever seen. I’m sick and tired of looking like a moron to everyone who asks me what’s going on, and I want some answers. Now.”
There was a general rustling following this, as everyone either shifted through paperwork or squirmed in their chairs, figuratively looking for some sort of cover. Tom Wilson glanced at Brandt, who merely smiled and extended his hand in invitation; these people were more Wilson’s bosses than Brandt’s, the gesture said, so be my guest.
Wilson sighed and addressed the board. “Madam Chairman, I wish I could accommodate you and your colleagues here, and I’ll certainly do the best I can, with Chief Brandt’s cooperation, of course. Despite the setbacks, the confusion, and all the press, the police department is doing its job. Progress is being made, and the instances you mentioned of what looked like random police activity all have clear and reasonable explanations-”
“Of which we can give you only the barest outline,” Brandt added.
“I’ll start with that,” Jackson said. “God knows I don’t have a damned thing now.”
I sensed from the tone that things were settling down slightly and entering a purely informational phase. Wilson and Brandt were to become, for the next several minutes, the feeders at the lion cage, doling out morsels to a beast with an appetite for their arms. I turned my attention to the wad of papers that Maxine Paroddy had handed me earlier.
It turned out Jackson hadn’t been the only one to get calls from reporters in California. I gave up on the phone messages about halfway through and turned to the daily report to see if anything new had surfaced during the night shift. Apart from the usual array of domestic disputes, a barroom brawl, and a foot chase after a teenager who’d been trying to pry open a bank’s night-deposit box with a crowbar, the report told me nothing I wanted to know. I wished to hell I’d been able to get to my office before I’d been dragged in here, so I could have had a peek at our own interoffice report.
Disappointed, I returned to my mail, dimly aware of the back and forth goings-on at the front of the room. Wilson, with little help from Brandt, was trying to explain the necessity of checking into everything and everybody in a case like this, even at the risk of stepping on toes.
My mail was also unenlightening: equipment brochures, official junk mail from the state capital, notifications of various classes being offered to police officers, from first-aid to SWAT tactics. I went back to the phone messages, this time starting from the bottom of the pile.
The fifth one up froze me in my seat: Isador Gramm, Beverly Hillstrom’s forensic toxicologist, had called with “interesting news.” The message indicated he’d called just five minutes before I’d been dragged into this kangaroo proceeding.
I snapped out of my reverie at the mention of my name “-been up to, nosing around like some damn tabloid reporter?”
Brandt answered. “His job, Mr. Vice-Chairman, which he can’t do sitting here.”
“He is the one heading this investigation, is he not?”
“He is, but he will not be allowed to speak on that matter.”
Jackson bristled. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Please,” Mrs. Morse warned, looking at Jackson.
“It means I won’t let him. I am head of the department, and everything Lieutenant Gunther does is cleared through me. I will be his spokesman at this meeting, and I think you’ll find that doing otherwise will only get all of us into more hot water if and when the press finds out about this little get-together.”
“I do not intend that they find out.”