George had told me which trailer Phil and Danny were camped in, so I drove slowly over the frozen, rutted yard until I’d drawn abreast of a box with both rear doors all but completely shut.
I killed the engine, got out and paused a moment to listen. Everything appeared utterly still. To the loud moaning of cold-stiffened hinges, I swung one of the doors back and peered inside.
The box was almost empty, its cavernous interior stark and resonant. Far to the back, however, jammed into one of the corners, was a rounded pile of rags, blankets, and cardboard-reminiscent, in a crude fashion, of an oversized cocoon.
“Phil. Danny,” I called out. “It’s Joe Gunther. Bratt PD. I got breakfast for you.”
The vapor from my breath hung motionless before me, glistening in the pale light of the new sun. These people were not early risers, unless they were living in some building’s furnace room and trying to avoid detection, so I wasn’t surprised that all I got for my effort was a slight shifting from deep inside the bundle.
Encouraged, I returned to my car, retrieved the cardboard trays I’d just purchased, and slid them onto the edge of the trailer floor before struggling up to join them. Once inside, I carried the food halfway down the box and sat down, my back against the wall.
“Okay, guys, open your nostrils if nothing else. This stuff won’t stay hot for long.”
Slowly, the cocoon lost definition, coming apart in odd ways-a chrysalis of dubious origin yielding inhabitants not known for their glory. Shaggy heads topped by dirt-flecked wool hats emerged, blinking and bewildered in the intensifying sunlight.
“Who the fuck is that?”
“Joe Gunther,” I repeated. “Bratt PD.”
Some recognizable forms began to appear-an arm, an outthrust leg, a gloved hand working out the cramps instilled by a night spent in near-hibernation. One of them rose unsteadily, leaning for support against the wall.
“Joe Gunther?”
It had been a while since I’d last seen either one of them, and right now they were not at their best. I ventured a guess at the more alert of the two. “Hey, Phil. Tough night?”
“Had worse,” he said suspiciously, only his eyes visible between a scarf and a pulled-down watch cap.
“Well, you can refuel with some of this if you want.”
The homeless inhabitants of Brattleboro, especially those we called the “regulars,” were a pretty predictable tribe. Mostly men in their mid-thirties or older, they kept to themselves, were respectful of us, and largely sought to be ignored. A few of them panhandled, a few-when they had the money-went for a rare meal at a restaurant, much to everyone else’s distress, but most of them merely existed on the town’s periphery. They ate out of Dumpsters, slept out of sight, and lived off what was either given them through charity, or from the money they redeemed for the beer cans they emptied in copious amounts. Regardless of their other sanitary shortcomings, they rarely left a can or a bottle lying around-they were among the best recyclers in town.
They were also remarkably law-abiding. They did their drinking in private, kept their disagreements off the street, and had even been known, now and then, to help us out with some information. Generally, when investigating a burglary, even in the town’s poorer neighborhoods, we didn’t bother with the bums-however isolated and despairing it might be, theirs was not a life of crime.
All of that, however, also made them wary, and having a cop arrive on their doorstep with a hot catered meal was not something they took easily in stride.
Phil’s voice changed to that of a mildly affronted homeowner being disturbed too early in the day. “Excuse me, sir, but what do you want?”
“First, I want you to eat this stuff before it turns to ice. Then I want to talk to you about Milo. George Capullo told me where to find you.”
Danny Soffit, the slower of the two, had by now also emerged, but he stayed, splayed out and dazed, on the floor.
“Milo’s dead.” Phil straightened his neck out, as if to gain a better view of my offerings. The smell of the hot food had already filled the trailer.
“I know that. I guess it was just his time. I went down to the funeral home to pay my respects. Milo and I were friends-at least we were friendly.”
“So what do you want?”
“I need to know how he died.” I waved my hand at the food. “It’s a straight swap-breakfast for a little conversation. No strings attached.”
Phil crossed back over to where Danny was still staring at us and kicked him in the leg. “Move your butt. Food’s on.”
Danny swiveled around and began approaching me like a shambling bear, on hands and knees. Phil shook his head in gentle embarrassment and walked over to sit opposite me. “He’s not too good this early.”
I pushed a tray at him. “Me neither. Dig in.”
He did just that, as did Danny a minute later, eventually dusting their beards, gloves, and clothing with small fragments of Egg McMuffin, hash-browns, toast, jelly, and coffee.
I let them eat half the meal in peace before exacting my price. “You told Sergeant Capullo that Milo had a seizure before he died.”
“Yeah,” Danny spoke for the first time. “He twitched a bunch.”
Phil gave his friend a look over the top of his Styrofoam cup but otherwise kept quiet.
“The three of you were hanging out together, around a fire, and he suddenly up and died-just like that?”
Phil nodded and began to speak but was drowned out by Danny’s, “Oh no. Not like that.”
“Shut up, Danny.”
We both looked at Phil, Danny’s eyes growing wide. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “I forgot.” Then he looked at me with childlike sincerity. “Yup. He died just like that.”
Milo’s appearance at the funeral home returned to me once more, along with the memories it had evoked. This was the moment I’d been anticipating and dreading both, and I wanted to make sure I handled it right. “How did his beard get all wet, Danny?”
Danny looked at me in startled silence.
“He foamed at the mouth,” Phil answered. “They do that with seizures.”
“Sergeant Capullo reported that you two were living under the bridge, and Milo was camped out in the drain tunnel. Is that right?”
They both nodded.
“Why weren’t you staying together?”
“Didn’t like Milo,” Danny blurted.
“So why gather around a fire like a bunch of Boy Scouts?”
Neither man answered.
“Look,” I finally said, “let me get something out in the open. The doctor who examined Milo thought he’d died of natural causes-because of your seizure story and the fact that Milo was on heart medication. Turns out the heart condition wasn’t fatal, and Milo never had a seizure in his life. I checked on that. I think Milo died of something else. Not anything you did-you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But you made up the seizure story to make the whole thing go away. Isn’t that about right?”
Danny’s mouth fell open, dropping a few half-eaten scraps.
But I focused on Phil. “Yesterday afternoon, I called your old landlord. You can have your room back, as long as you don’t start another campfire. But I need to know what really happened.”