“He came up through the ranks ‘far from the flagpole,’ as he puts it, in Montana, Wyoming… Places where he was the only agent for hundreds of square miles. His name is Walter Frazier, and he’s spent his whole career working with other agencies, and mostly in rural states. He’s perfectly happy to take an overseer’s role in a case, trusting the locals to do a professional job. We could put together an FBI-sanctioned task force, largely run by us and the Vermont State Police, working under the U.S. Attorney’s office in conjunction with you. That way, we would gain the advantage of having some federal clout, the state’s self-interests would be served with a fraction of the effort, and everybody’ll come out looking good.”
Derby actually laughed. Brandt, his fiddling with the pipe concluded, sighed and stared stonily out the window.
“And you think they’ll all buy that?” Derby finally asked.
I smiled back at him. “You know as much as I do that personalities count for a lot in this business-getting the right judge on a case, treating the clerk of court decently, showing other cops you’re on their side. What do you think about what I’ve said-purely from your own perspective?”
“I don’t think it’s particularly realistic, but it would make for some good politics.”
I leaned back in my chair. “People don’t think ideas like this are realistic because they don’t think they could get them to work themselves. But if you picked your way through the system carefully, you might be surprised. You just admitted you’re half won over yourself.”
“Well, I’m not,” Brandt finally growled, chilling the air. “Five people have died in this town in the last two weeks. We may have an Asian gang trying to take over the streets. Ron Klesczewski is out on indefinite leave; I’ve got media people jamming the halls like vagrants; and now you want to disappear and play federal task force with the VSP.
“As the one person who has nothing to gain from this scheme, I don’t buy it. To me, it means another man lost whose salary I still have to meet. ATF and FBI and all the other alphabet soups have regional offices precisely so they can inherit cases like this from overworked, understaffed, poorly funded outfits like ours.”
He turned his attention to me. “And I don’t agree that by working with the feds you’ll solve our problems here any quicker. You could do that best by staying put and working from this end while the feds work from theirs-that’s the sort of cooperation that’ll do us the most good.”
He got to his feet and crossed over to the window, propping his elbow on the high cement sill. When he spoke again, his voice had lost some of its edge. “I’m not denying you have real concerns for the town’s welfare if this case isn’t properly handled. But there may not be a hell of a lot any of us can do about that-that’s the reality of the system. We do what we can, and then we let it go, which-I’ll admit if you won’t-is not something you do well.
“I’m also wondering about the effects of this shooting on you. As far as I know, you haven’t reacted to it at all. You shouldn’t be here now. You should be at home with Gail, like Ron is with his wife, or spilling those overly controlled guts of yours to a department-paid shrink.”
I felt hammered by this. Tony had suddenly diverted the discussion onto a totally different path, reducing my advocacy to some sort of psychological avoidance of reality.
I couldn’t find anything to say to him that wouldn’t bolster his argument and make me sound defensive, so I stayed silent, trying to sense through my own anger if he might’ve been right.
Tony removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Look, we all agree on one thing: We probably won’t have this case for much longer. Why don’t we do it by the numbers-keep working on it for a couple of more days, at least until we get some feedback on the inquiries we’ve sent? Maybe by then we’ll have found something juicy enough to make the FBI really take notice.”
“Sounds good to me,” Derby quickly answered and rose to his feet.
I got up also, nodding in agreement. Tony, in an effort to make amends, added with feigned hopefulness, “That’s probably what’ll happen. We’re due for a break.”
“Right,” Derby said from the door. “We’ll kick it around later.”
I made to follow him out, but Tony stopped me. “Joe.”
“What?” I said, not looking back, unsure of what he’d hit me with next.
“You all right on this?” he asked, his voice softened by concern.
“Sure,” I answered, my earlier anger sapped by the knowledge that we were both merely twisting in the same stressful breeze.
“I got a call from Time Magazine an hour ago. They’re going to use this in a cover article on violence in rural America. They want a list of people they should talk to.”
I turned then and watched him standing by the window, the TV trucks outside as a backdrop.
He crossed over to his desk and sat down heavily. “I know I took a cheap shot at you just then, but I am worried. If we screw this up, it’ll be open season on the entire department. With the networks, Time Magazine, and who-knows-who-else zeroing in, our people’ll be made to look like total hicks. I just don’t want to feed that.”
I crossed the room and sat back down. “They may be better at protecting themselves than you think.”
He made a face as if tasting something sour. “Maybe.”
He put the fingertips of both hands up to his temples and gave himself a three-second massage, his eyes shut. Then he hunched forward, put his elbows on his desk, and looked up at me. “I’m not dead against you on this. I just don’t want to jump the gun. I want it clear to everybody we know what to do and how to do it.”
I got up and returned to the door, satisfied that we’d cleared the air.
Tony stopped me for the second time. “Joe.”
“Yeah?”
“Things okay with us?”
I leered malevolently at him and tapped the side of my head. “You know me, Tony-‘Never Forget. Never Forgive.’ Have a nice day.”
He shook his head, but at least he was smiling back.
11
I found Sammie Martens tucked away in her cubicle in the far corner of the detective squad room.
“Everyone else at lunch?”
She looked up at me in surprise. Small, athletic, and occasionally quick to temper, she was to me the most intriguing member of my crew. As experienced as Ron Klesczewski, she was blessed with more boldness, imagination, and perseverance. She could also be a victim of her own determination, however, pursuing a lead to the point of obsession. But she was utterly dedicated and, in her own tough way, caring.
“What are you doing here? Didn’t Gail come down last night?” she asked.
“She’s still here,” I answered vaguely, not interested in repeating the polemics I’d just gone through with Tony Brandt. “I hear you’re trying to ID the two shooters that were with Henry Lam.”
She scowled at the litter of scribbled notes on her desk. “Yeah, and getting nowhere fast. I can’t find anything on them, they don’t appear in our new photo album, nobody at the two crash pads in town will admit knowing anything about them, and the car out front was registered to Lam. Willy, Dennis, and J.P. are out showing mug shots to all the restaurants and motels, but until we pin names or DOBs to ’em”-she gestured to the computer terminal across the room-“that thing’s going to be pretty useless.”
“You’ve got Lam’s name.”
That only increased her frustration. “Yeah, right, but the only record I found anywhere on him says he’s the lawful owner of a Massachusetts car.”
“Any distinguishing marks on the bodies of the other two? Tattoos, maybe?” I asked.
“The youngest-looking one had a tattoo of a panther crawling down his left arm, and the letters ‘CTG’ inscribed in the web of his hand, between the thumb and index.”
“How old do you think he was?”