“You Larry?”
He gave me a slightly weary look. “Yeah-what can I do for you?” The emphasis was on the last word.
I pulled out my badge. “Guess you must be a little under the gun, first day back.”
He smiled apologetically. “It’s okay. That’s what they pay me for. But the place is crawling with VIPs asking dumb questions-slows everything down. What’s up?”
I made my answer as low-key as possible. “We had reports the site might’ve been used by bums during the past month. You seen any evidence of that?”
He shook his head. “Not down here. I found a few cans and bottles in the lobby area-” He suddenly laughed. “And a pair of women’s underwear. You gotta be crazy. The place wasn’t even heated this last month.”
That didn’t sound like Milo. “Anything else?”
“What about the upper floors?” Willy asked suddenly.
Larry looked at Kunkle. “No and I don’t know, in that order. I haven’t had time to check upstairs. I wouldn’t doubt it, though. People like crawling around construction sites at night. I did, as a kid.”
His radio squawked and he told the caller to hang on. “You want to check it out, be my guest-just try not to get killed. The stairs aren’t closed in all the way up.” He hesitated a moment, looking suddenly concerned. “I didn’t report what I found ’cause it was junk, you know? Nothing was broken or stolen.”
I waved my hand at him. “Not to worry. This is strictly routine.” He nodded, relieved, and showed us to another set of stairs before turning to his radio.
“If we find anything, I bet it’ll be up there,” Willy said, trudging up behind me. “If Milo’s going to break in here, he’s going to want a room with a view.”
“Good point,” I agreed.
One floor up we came to the future lobby-wide, soaring, with one wall and part of the ceiling, now covered in plywood, obviously destined to receive atrium-style windows. We hunted around for more stairs and found them far to the back, only partially walled in.
The trip took us through a series of variously gutted floors, reminiscent of a model ocean liner I’d seen as a child-large and carefully detailed, protected inside a museum’s glass case-in which one half of the hull had been removed to reveal the ship’s innards. I’d spent half an hour studying it, trying to memorize it all, and had finally walked away dazed by a blur of uncountable stacked decks. I’d never been able to think of a large ship since as not having one side missing.
Here, as in the model, the normal partitions were gone and I could see as if through translucent walls, from one end of each floor to the other. Farther up, however, things began to change. Walls appeared, hallways took shape, and the vague outlines of the hotel’s future look began to emerge. Ironically, in contrast with its more finished appearance, the top floor seemed utterly deserted.
Willy was breathing like a consumptive eighty-year-old by the time we reached the top. His attitude, however, was as solid as ever. “I don’t know how that asshole got this far, but I still bet this is where he camped out.”
Though dusty, uncarpeted, and raw, this level was essentially completed, making for a huge number of unpainted, sheet-rocked rooms to check out. We each chose a wing and split up.
Willy’s opinion of Milo’s instinct for luxury wasn’t just because this floor had the best view. Unlike what we’d bypassed to get here, this one was laid out to appeal to the well-heeled. The rooms weren’t just cubicles with bathrooms and closets, but suites, with bay windows and balconies and fixtures for whirlpools. The fanciest even had a mezzanine overlooking a living room-along with a tidy pile of building scraps, pulled together to form a human-sized sleeping pallet.
I returned to the hallway and shouted Willy’s name. It took him under a minute to find me.
“Was I right?” he asked.
“On the money.” I ushered him into the room and up the spiral staircase to the half-floor above. No railing was in place yet, so the sense of space-further emphasized by the gauzy, plastic-sheeted, floor-to-ceiling window on the opposite wall-was dizzying. We both found ourselves warily eyeing the platform’s edge, even though neither one of us got close to it.
The hammock I’d discovered consisted of a scrap of sheetrock suspended between two stacks of wood and cushioned with torn cardboard boxes. “Somebody slept here.”
Willy was not to be dissuaded. “You kidding? Had to be Milo. Probably left a shitload of trace evidence.” He pointed around the mezzanine. “Plus there’re enough footprints in the plaster dust to fill a scrapbook.”
I held up my hand suddenly. “You hear something?”
“People talking on the floor below.” Willy smiled. “They better improve the sound insulation or they’re going to have some pretty pissed-off honeymooners.”
We climbed off the mezzanine, satisfied it had only the one access. At the bottom, I picked up a broken piece of sheetrock, wedged it across the bottom step, and wrote on it, “Police Scene-Do Not Pass-Brattleboro PD.” I added my name and the date underneath it and said, “That ought to hold them for thirty seconds. Let’s get J.P. over here.”
“You want to check anywhere else?” Willy asked.
“Yeah, but only after we’ve got this under wraps.” I shook my head slightly, looking back up the staircase. “I’ve got a gut feeling Milo’s got something to tell us.”
Entering the main stairwell, our path to a phone was interrupted by a peal of laughter from the landing below us, coming from a group obviously heading upstairs. Willy was about to ignore it and head on down, but a recognizable voice made me suddenly stop. Remembering the sensationalist headlines I had no interest in feeding, I felt suddenly exposed-and for a juvenile instant even contemplated flight.
The debate was settled, however, when the first of the party rounded the corner at our feet and fixed us with a surprised expression. He was tall, slim, and well dressed, albeit in jeans and construction boots, with wisps of dark red hair peering out from under his hard-hat, which, under the Carroll Construction logo, was labeled “Paul.”
“Hello?” he said in a politely startled voice. “May I help you?”
The second member of the group-the owner of the voice I’d winced at-appeared by his shoulder, his face split open by the trademark good ol’ boy, friend-of-the-people grin that had garnered him so much favor at the polls. “Uh-oh, Paul, we better cheese it-it’s the cops,” he said, after which Thomas Chambers let forth an uproarious laugh.
“What’re you boys doing here?” he then asked, his cold eyes the only harbingers of candor in his artificially happy face.
“We had a report of some vandalism,” I answered blandly. “Didn’t find much, though.”
The man in the “Paul” hat frowned. “I didn’t hear anything about that.”
“Not much to hear,” I continued. “A few cans and bottles-looks like maybe a bum spent the night. No damage. I’m Joe Gunther, by the way, from the Bratt PD. This is Willy Kunkle.”
The other man shook my hand. “Paul Hennessy. I’m the project manager for this job. Glad to meet you.” He glanced nervously at Willy, who didn’t smile, comment, or offer a hand.
The rest of the group had joined us in the stairwell by now and were standing awkwardly behind and below one another-Harold Matson, the Bank of Brattleboro’s president; Jim Carroll, who owned the construction company; Ted McDonald, of WBRT-no doubt scooping the Reformer-and a couple of younger attendants, poised to act on the wills of their masters.
“Where’s your brother?” I asked NeverTom. “I would’ve thought he’d be along on something like this.”
Chambers laughed again. “Oh, you know Junior-likes to keep to himself. I’m the family representative today.” He jerked his chin in the direction Willy and I had come from. “I take it the top floor is safe to visit?”