He shook his head slightly. “No.” I could hear Spinney audibly releasing his breath, acknowledging the risk I’d just taken. “What makes you think the first bunch won’t come back-with a vengeance-and maybe do the same thing with your wife?”
He didn’t answer but took a deep breath and shuddered.
“You know they will, to save face if nothing else. Unless you help us change things, that’s the fix you’ll be in forever-being kicked back and forth, staying silent for the sake of your family, and watching them all die anyway.”
I gave my words time to sink in.
“I do not know what to do,” he finally whispered.
“You’re worried we’ll ask too much-that you’ll be exposed and cause Amy’s death.”
He nodded.
“If you tell us what we need to know, that’ll be the end of it. You won’t see us again. Nobody’ll ever know we made contact.”
A small furrow appeared between his eyebrows as he looked at me. “What is it?”
“My guess is that you’re pretty much doing what you did before, with a few additions and in bigger numbers-processing aliens, credit-card receipts, laundering money, maybe some drugs… Right?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s what you did for Michael Vu’s gang?”
“Yes.”
“How was the contraband moved through your place, when you were cooperating with Vu?”
He looked puzzled. “With Vu?”
“Look,” I said, delivering my pitch. “I don’t want to put your daughter further at risk. Remember, I said we need to go after at least one of the rocks you’re stuck between? Let’s go after the lesser of the two-the one that’s not controlling you at the moment. It’s a way we can further disguise the fact that we ever had this conversation.”
He nodded slowly. “I see.”
“So how was it handled?”
“The aliens came and went in cars or small buses, as they do now. All I did, and all I still do, is hold them for a little while.”
“And the money laundering? The drugs?”
“A man in a van would come by sometimes-I never knew when-and would pick up receipts and packages. Members of my staff-gang members-did all of that. I was just to run the restaurant. It is a good restaurant… An honest restaurant.”
“I know that, Mr. Lee-you supplied the cover only. Did this man have a name?”
“I was not told it. I did not want to know.”
“How ’bout the van? Was it always the same? A delivery truck, maybe carrying legitimate supplies as well?”
“No-that was the old way, and the way it is now. In between, Vu used a camping van. Blue… And a black top. It had a painting on its side, of the mountains and a setting sun. Very colorful.”
“Did you ever see the license plate?”
“No.”
“Did you get the impression that its driver made stops all over the state-like a delivery boy?”
“I do not know.”
“One last question. When Vu’s gang took over Da Wang’s territory-right after your home invasion-did you discuss what was happening with any other restaurant owners? Were any other owners forced to join like you?”
“I never discussed it, but I know it happened to others.”
“Who?”
“I do not know. They told me it was so-the people who worked for Vu.”
“How ’bout your friends in other restaurants? You must keep in touch, compare prices or whatever…”
But he was shaking his head. “We never talk about the Dark Root. It is not wise.”
I glanced back at Spinney, who tilted his head slightly to one side. We both knew we’d gotten all we could hope to get.
We opened our doors and got out. I leaned back in before slamming mine shut. “Thanks, Mr. Lee. Go back to work and try not to worry. We’ll do everything possible to get Amy back.”
“That must’ve filled him with confidence,” Spinney said as we retraced our route down the Old Guilford Road.
I was in a sour mood, despite the lead we’d been provided. “Can’t do what he won’t do for himself.”
But Spinney was feeling expansive. “Considering where they come from, and what they’ve been through, it doesn’t surprise me they don’t cozy right up to us.”
“Lots of people don’t cozy up to us. That doesn’t mean they roll over and play dead. She’s his own daughter, for Christ’s sake.” I reached South Main Street and drove to the cemetery where Dennis was buried. There I pulled over and dialed Dan Flynn’s number on the mobile phone. I understood the source of my rage. Amy Lee was someone who up till now had been spared the exploitation and cruelty we were rallying against, and in short order I’d seen her terrorized, assaulted, humiliated, and now kidnapped. Spinney was right about Thomas Lee-he’d been conditioned to react the way he had. But it wasn’t in my nature to stand by and hope for the best.
“Got a hot one,” I told Frazier when he got on the line. “Put a statewide BOL out on a blue van, black top, with a setting-sun-behind-the-mountains scene painted on the side-probably out-of-state plates. If we’re lucky, that’s the runner connecting all or some of Truong’s properties.”
“No shit.”
“Right.” I hung up and turned to Spinney, aware of the staggered rows of monuments beyond him-and the one, now along with Amy Lee, that stood as an icon for what was driving me on. “I don’t argue with what you’re saying, Les. I’ve just never been where nobody-not the community, not the victims, not the casual observers-will let us in. I know they have their reasons, but I’m on target with this thing, and it makes me nuts they won’t let us set things right.”
I spent the rest of the day at the Municipal Building, while Spinney went off to touch base with his state police buddies at their West Brattleboro barracks. I caught up on the local gossip, shuffled the paperwork enough to make it look disturbed, and found out what my squad had been up to. But my heart wasn’t in it, and I had a hard time concentrating. Despite the frustration I’d voiced to Spinney earlier, I’d been bitten by Thomas Lee’s misery and wanted desperately to make good my pledge to return his daughter safely. And somehow, I wanted to prove also that the system I’d worked for my entire adult life was a fundamentally fair and decent thing, despite its many flaws.
Relief came later that night, with the bleating of my pager coming for once as a blessing.
Flynn picked up my return call on the first ring. “We found the van. Outside a motel in Springfield. The driver’s checked in, I guess for the night. We got a plainclothes unit sitting on it. I don’t know where he’s headed or what he’s up to.”
“But it is a single Asian male driving it, right?”
“Yup, and with Mass. plates. If I was a betting man, I’d say we just got lucky. I’m not, of course,” he added, after a slight pause. “You want us to tag him tomorrow? See where he leads us?”
“Yeah, but I want to use a plane, too-Al Hammond’s got one down here. He can stay up for six hours at a time. That way, your boys only need to get close every once in a while. If this character is making the rounds, he’s going to be cruising all over the place. I don’t want him wondering what all those dark-green Caprices are doing hanging onto his ass.”
“Hey-we got sportier models. I like the plane, though. Who do you want where?”
“If Hammond’s available, I’ll go with him in the air. We could put Spinney in charge of three or four rotating cars, and connect us all with closed-frequency radios.”
Al Hammond was a tall and laconic sheriff in the old mold, who knew everyone necessary to ensure his hold on his job, and yet who ran enough of a hands-off operation that his men were imbued with the self reliance that makes for a good department. But Al was no mere paper shuffler. He’d been a police officer all his life, all over the state, and at one time or another had done business, it seemed, with every other cop in Vermont. He was so unflappable as to appear lethargic at times, a misperception that had cost many a crook or fledgling defense lawyer dearly.