Tyler conferred with the trooper on how his own evidence gathering should coordinate with that of the state’s mobile crime lab. I moved to the edge of the scene and leaned against the burning metal of a parked patrol car.
“So this is the guy you’ve been looking for.” Tony Brandt had quietly crossed the field and stood before me.
“Yeah.” The enthusiasm I’d felt at my meeting this morning had evaporated with this latest discovery. Watching homicide-scene technicians yet again at work, measuring, photographing, collecting, I began to question whether we’d made any progress at all.
Although I’d never met him, Toby’s death hit me as hard as John Woll’s. I had been concerned for his safety, had considered the darker possibilities for his disappearance, but I had always hoped he’d be able to avoid the man stalking him as well as he had us. Four people were now dead, and I had no idea who might be next. That thought depressed me as few things had before.
Brandt seemed to know what was going on inside me. He, more than anyone on the force, had traveled the same path for as long as I had. And he, more than I, had done battle with politicians, press, and public, all opponents who were never easily satisfied. Who better could recognize in a fellow cop the telltale warnings of impending burnout?
He asked me the kind of deductive question that could bring me back to the scene before us: “Why was he buried here?”
It was said casually, and it took a few seconds to sink in, like a rock seeking the bottom of a well. But when it touched home, I began to play back the events leading to this grave, as well as to another I’d stood over just days before.
“Because he-unlike Charlie Jardine-wasn’t meant to be found.”
Charlie’s burial had been an arrogant challenge, put forth by a mind that believed itself in control. It had been the first overt move in a carefully thought-out campaign. Toby Huntington had been killed by a man scrambling to cover his tracks, just as when he’d attacked Ron and me in the parking lot, and even earlier, when he’d shot Milly Crawford. With Milly he had taken the time to salt the trail with red herrings. Lately, however, that subtlety had begun to evaporate, replaced, I realized, with a propensity to make mistakes.
As a living potential witness, Toby had been an elusive, uncooperative failure. Now, I became increasingly convinced, he might help us far more from his burial place.
I walked to the roped-off edge of the scene. “J.P.” Tyler, on his knees, his evidence kit beside him, looked up at me. “It’s just a feeling, but don’t get too lost in the details here. I think our man is running for cover, and I don’t think he’s taking time to be overly neat and tidy.”
“You mean, look for the killer’s wallet under the body?”
“You can dream if you want, but make sure you tell Hillstrom to compare any bullet fragments recovered here to what she dug out of John Woll.”
Tyler sat back on his heels and flashed a smile. “Wouldn’t that be sweet?”
I walked back to Tony Brandt, my earlier depression blown away as by the wind, the smell of the scent again fresh in my nostrils. I took him by the elbow and steered him away from the small crowd, out into the privacy of the open field. “I’ve got something cooking that should scare the hell out of whatever political ninth life you have left.”
Willy Kunkle had apparently organized the local-history room until it could stand no more. We were now on the first floor, in the back corner of the research section, in a twenty-by-five-foot room filled with racked back issues of magazines like Consumer Reports and Road amp; Track.
Kunkle was savagely jamming weatherworn issues back into their proper places after a day in which the periodicals had seen more than their fair share of use.
I was patiently waiting for his reaction to my invitation.
“Why the fuck should I help you guys?”
“You have so far.”
“I was curious; it was total self-interest.”
“It was also useful, and it’s beginning to flush this guy out.”
“You could’ve fooled Toby.”
“Toby may yet tell us things.”
He didn’t answer, and I watched him for several minutes at work, his muscular right hand working as fast and sure as a hawk talon. After he’d left the department, I’d heard he’d begun lifting weights and exercising with his usual obsessive drive. Indeed, aside from the withered arm, I’d never seen him fitter.
“I found out a little more on the drug angle.”
I went with his change of topic. “Oh yeah?”
“Turns out the guy I told you about, the one in Boston who had Hanson and Cappelli on the payroll, he’s been approached by someone else.”
“Who?”
“Don’t know; real secretive, but the base is supposed to be here in Bratt.”
“Same action, new players?”
“Looks that way. I’d say whoever you’re up against has both scores to settle and big ambitions.”
I watched him work some more in silence. “How much longer do you see yourself filing books?”
He stopped in mid-motion and glared at me, his face twisted. “Fuck you, Joey-boy. I want career counseling, I’ll hire it.”
“We might be able to get you back on the force.”
He became very angry, very suddenly. “Look, you bastard, you want me to cover your ass in some bullshit commando crock tonight, that’s fine with me. I’ll do it. With any luck, I’ll get a little action, and you and Brandt’ll get your asses handed to you on a platter-good for everybody. But don’t blow in my ear, okay? Don’t pretend you give a good goddamn what happens to me. I’m the biggest pain in the ass you ever had in the department, and it’s goddamn insulting that you think I’ll swallow your wanting me back.”
“I didn’t say I liked you, Willy-but you were the best at what you did. My only problem was I wished I could keep you under a rock until I needed you.”
He smiled slightly, perhaps with perverse pride. “So what the hell are you saying?”
“There’s a new federal handicap law, one of those anti-discrimination acts. You could use it to get back on, whether you help me tonight or not. It would be better than this, and you’d get the pleasure of making my life miserable again.”
He shook his head and turned away. But he didn’t resume filing magazines. Instead, he just stared at the shelves, lost in thought. Finally, he looked back at me and scratched his head. I thought for a split moment that he seemed faintly embarrassed. His voice, however, remained predictably hard-bitten. “I’ll think about it.”
He stuck his hand out. “You said you had some blueprints for tonight’s dog-and-pony show.”
I shook my head, doubting my own sanity, and pulled them out of my pocket.
34
The high-school cafeteria was a sterile place at the best of times: linoleum floor, pale cinder block walls, fluorescent strip lighting. The only colorful spots were the dispensing machines along one wall, a few socially conscious posters across from them, and a bolted-to-the-floor army of garish blue-and-red, picnic-style tables and benches in between. Now, however, late at night, with only maintenance lighting leaking in from down a distant hallway, the illuminated soda and snack machines dominated the place, glowing as from some inner life-force, spreading the hues of their chaotically clashing logos across the huge, ghostly quiet room.
Pierre Lavoie and I sat facing each other at one of the picnic tables, I with a legal pad before me, he with a small knapsack. The pad was for show only, the sack to hide his portable radio. Our budget did not allow for the fancy hands-off communications systems the Secret Service seems to favor. We made do with standard patrolman radios, tucked out of sight and hooked to a small earphone and a somewhat larger clip-on lapel mike whose side button had to be manually depressed for the user to transmit his message. The gloominess hid most of the extraneous wires from sight, as did the long-haired wig I’d forced Pierre to wear. The mikes were clipped to the armored vests inside our shirts.