Dennis DeFlorio’s grave was to enjoy this dramatic, beautiful, neglected view forever.
There were hundreds of people at the burial-most of them in uniform-fanning out in concentric circles from the awning-shaded casket and the decorously camouflaged hole beside it, unhampered by the walls of the small church that had excluded all but a few of them at the service earlier.
The killing of a police officer does that to other men and women who wear badges for a living-stimulates them to convene as they never will for other occasions. They will travel hundreds of miles, from several states away and from Canada, to pay their respects-not so much to a person they never knew, but in homage to an exclusive, lonely, tribal occupation that no one besides them fully understands. Every cop who dies in the line of duty does so alone-in surprise; and perhaps for that reason, every other cop who can do so attends the interment, if for no other reason than to atone for arriving too late.
Gail was there with me, coming down once more from her studies in South Royalton. As an ex-selectman with an unusually high profile, her presence was noticed by a department that had once perceived her as one of the bosses, and was all the more appreciated given the slant of her politics.
Not that politics came into it here, as it might have in another town, where finding fault or gaining advantage are often knee-jerk reactions to crisis. For a place as culturally diverse as Brattleboro, there was still an intense sense of community, heightened in such times because people felt it slowly eroding away despite the high pitch of their well-intentioned nostalgia.
Unlike in Boston, or even many of its neighboring communities, this town’s civilian population did not take the death of one of its police officers in stride. It was as stunned and bewildered as the tiny group weeping by the side of the casket. Dennis’s wife, Emily, and his two young children, were like the splash in the center of a sun-dappled pond, where the reflections came not from rippling water, but from the rows upon rows of parade-ground uniforms, from gleaming buttons, belt buckles, and badges stirred in among the dark-clad citizens of the town. The small family’s sorrow spread out to the farthest reaches of the crowd, to be absorbed, reproduced, and offered up for public scrutiny by a semicircle of cameramen, photographers, and reporters.
After it was over, after the ritual salute by weapons fire, the folding of the flag, the speaking of words that didn’t remotely reflect the man in the casket, the crowd melted away over the monument-studded horizon and abandoned the cemetery workers to their practical work with shovel and backhoe.
Gail and I went for a walk among the gravestones, some of which dated back two hundred years. We walked without speaking, holding hands, until we found a comfortable-looking marker, wide enough for us to lean against, facing the enormous, silent mountain across the water.
“What are you thinking?” she asked after a while.
“That of all the cops in the department, Dennis was the one guaranteed to die in his bed-probably from choking on a donut. I was the one who suggested taking the Jeep. Why did he offer to drive? He normally didn’t volunteer for anything. I guess he’d gotten into this case-something about it had caught him up-made him enthusiastic…”
“Not a bad time to go, if you have to. That’s something.”
But I shook my head emphatically. “He didn’t die at the right time, or for a noble cause. He was butchered. The poor dumb son of a bitch was blown apart by some bastard who didn’t give a shit who he killed. Dennis DeFlorio is a monument to somebody’s twisted pride-a status symbol, like some fucking tattoo.”
I paused to pluck at a few tufts of grass. “Worst part is, I’d been told a cop was being targeted. I just didn’t take it seriously.”
Then I returned to a sore that had been festering in me for days. “Same thing with Vince Sharkey. Alfie Brewster might’ve set up that shoot-out, but I was the one who got Vince all worked up. And then I canceled the tail we had on him.”
“None of this is your fault, Joe.”
I didn’t argue with her. “Tony told me the post-shoot investigator thought we’d played a little loose going into that deal. He was right. It wasn’t Ron’s fault we both almost got killed. I’m his boss. It was mine.”
Gail was not cooperating. “You’re feeling sorry for yourself. You didn’t kill Dennis. And Ron would’ve been dead, too, if you hadn’t been there. Ask yourself instead, ‘What do I do now?’ The department’s in shock, and with Tony out of commission, you’re the one they’ll be looking to for leadership. You’ve got to give them something to focus on.”
It was then, as if responding to some oddly theatrical cue, that Billy Manierre found us.
He came obliquely, his uniform hat in hand, as if ready to shy off at the slightest notice. His eyes were fixed on Gail, his old-school training sensitive to any hysterical feminine outburst she might spontaneously indulge in.
Instead, she smiled warmly, as most people did on greeting Billy-the living embodiment of the round, friendly, cop-on-the-beat.
“Have a seat.” She patted the thick grass next to her.
He predictably demurred, standing awkwardly instead, looking around as if in fear of an ambush.
I got to my feet to make him feel more comfortable. “What’s up?”
“I was going back to the station-see to the paperwork and all-but I thought maybe we ought to talk a little before. It’ll probably be a nuthouse back there-lot of media back in town, lot of people wanting to bend my ear…”
I helped him out. “You’d like an update?”
“If you’re up to it. I know this may not be the time or place.”
My eyes slid off his face and strayed across the river. Legend had it that once, years ago, there’d been a fire on top of Wantastiquet, and that when firefighters had started climbing its steep, tree-choked slopes, they’d been met and scattered by an avalanche of rattlesnakes, all fleeing downhill in a writhing mass. Apocryphal or not, the story had its own curious appeal to me right now.
“No-that’s fine. I can do that,” I began, and then, both stimulated by Gail’s pep talk and yielding to the smoldering frustration that Dennis’s death had finally made unbearable, I added, “I’m about to spring something on you, though. Something I kicked around with Jack Derby and Tony a few days ago. Tony wasn’t too keen on it. But I’d like to make a pitch to Walter Frazier that the FBI create a task force-involving me-to take this case over.”
Billy’s mouth opened slightly in surprise. “Boy, Joe. That’s a little out of the blue. I mean, I heard something about it, but… What would that mean for us?”
As I spoke, my determination grew, along with an intoxicating sense of relief. “That I’d be reassigned. The department would still pay my salary, and the FBI would pick up the expenses and overtime. That’s if Frazier’s interested. It would release our manpower to catch up on other work, cut down on the overtime we’ve been racking up, and allow you to tell the press that the whole mess is out of your hands and that they can serenade the FBI for further details.”
“Jesus, Joe. I don’t think Tony’ll go for this.”
“Maybe not, but he’s flat on his back with a nose full of tubes. You’re the chief now.”
His discomfort began to gel into opposition. “I’m acting chief. I can’t authorize something like this.”
I looked at him closely. “Billy, I talked to a cop in Montreal this morning named Jean-Paul Lacoste. He’s their Asian-gang expert up there. He told me the man who got whacked in Montreal right after we stopped that car with Truong and Lam and the other guy last winter worked for a Chinese leader named Da Wang, that he’d been Da Wang’s right-hand man in charge of the Montreal-Vermont-Boston illegal-alien pipeline. He was what they call a snakehead-a runner of illegals.”