Finally, Joe sighed. "Thanks, Mom."
"I love you, sweetheart."
Willy Kunkle pointed through the windshield. "That's your man."
Sitting behind the wheel, Joe watched as a thin young hustler with a struggling beard swung off the porch of one of Brattleboro's ubiquitous decrepit wooden apartment houses on Canal Street and began walking west, his body language at odds with itself, hovering between watchfulness and cool indifference.
"John Moser?" Joe asked.
"The one and only."
"You have anything we can use to squeeze him?"
"Not much. Like I told you before, he's cagey that way. I do have a bluff that might work, though. Remember Jaime Wagner?"
Gunther thought back, his brain, like those of most in his profession, filled with a gallery of people no one else would choose to know. "Pimply guy who ripped off the Army Navy store a few years back?"
Kunkle nodded. "I've got him parked at the PD right now on something unrelated. But he works for Moser off and on, and I hear he helped Moser on a job just a few days ago. I'm thinking we can use him for that bogus lineup thing old Frank used to pull."
Gunther laughed. "Father Murphy's rolling, walk-by beauty show? Jesus. God knows what the legalities are of that nowadays."
"Who cares?" Willy answered, opening the door. "It's not like we're busting either one of them."
Joe didn't argue, if only because, in one fluid movement peculiar to this very asymmetrical man, Willy Kunkle had launched himself from the car and was already following their quarry down the street.
Joe cranked the engine, eased into traffic, and drove to a second parking spot about a block ahead of John Moser. He waited, watching Moser approach in the rearview mirror, Willy quietly closing the distance behind him, before he, too, got out of the car.
"John Moser?" he asked the young man, whose face instantly froze. "I'd like to ask you…"
Predictably, he didn't get to finish. But he didn't have to break into a footrace he wouldn't have won, either. Moser spun on his heel to bolt and ran right into Willy's powerful right hand, which grabbed him by the throat like a farmer snatching a chicken.
"Be nice, asshole," was all Willy said.
"So, here's the thing," Willy explained to a scowling John Moser sitting on a metal chair in an empty borrowed room down the hall from the VBI office. "We've been working that robbery/assault on Chicken Coop Hill four days ago-the one where you wore gloves and a mask and thought you were so good your shit didn't stink-and guess what? We've come up with a solid case. In fact, the SA likes it enough that he thinks he'll run with it."
"You're full of crap," Moser said flatly.
Which was correct. Willy had only heard that Moser had committed the crime, and he'd read the victim's statement. But he didn't have a case. Not only that, it would have been a Brattleboro PD investigation to begin with. So Willy was bluffing twice over. He did, however, have two advantages: First, Moser wouldn't know how police jurisdictional tap dances got sorted out, and second, he had no idea, in this world of fantasy forensics, what a cop like Willy would be able to conjure up.
"I'm full of something, all right," Willy agreed, pulling a small plastic bag from his pocket. "Like a strand of fiber we linked to your ski mask."
Moser squinted at the barely visible thread, in fact something Willy had removed from his own jacket earlier.
"And this," Willy added, waving a randomly selected crime lab printout in the air so Moser couldn't read it. "You're too dumb to know this, but DNA doesn't just come from blood and semen. We can get it from almost anywhere." He leaned forward slightly. "Including saliva. Like the little drops of spit you spray when you're talking. Remember talking to the victim, John? You got right in his face and said some really ugly things to him. And every time you opened your big yap, you nailed him with tiny bits of DNA." Willy waved the printout again. "Which we retrieved from the poor slob's face. Amazing, huh?"
Amazing and impossible. Except that Moser's growing concern was becoming clear.
Down the hall, Joe sat leaning back, his feet up on the windowsill, chatting with a high-strung Jaime Wagner, who was perched on the edge of a folding chair as if it might collapse beneath him.
"You've got to know we've been watching you, Jaime," Gunther said in a fatherly tone. "Kid like you, in a rush to spend the rest of his life in jail. It wears me out. You know how many years I've been chasing guys like you?"
In the sudden silence, Jaime Wagner felt forced to murmur, "No."
"Way too many," Joe said expansively. "I mean, it's no skin off my butt. It's what I get paid for. But you know, every once in a while, I play it differently-try to be a little more supportive. Maybe it's because I'm getting older-beats me-but I like stirring things up now and then."
Wagner was staring at him as if he were speaking Chinese.
Joe swung his feet off the windowsill and placed his elbows on his knees, scrutinizing Jaime. "That's why you're here. I had you picked up so you'd know I'm making a special project out of you-something to make me feel better about myself. I figure if I keep you out of trouble, maybe God'll look kindly on me at the end, you know what I'm saying?"
Jaime Wagner had no clue. "I guess."
Joe smiled. "Great. I wouldn't want to do this without your cooperation, right?"
Joe stood up and took two steps forward, so that he now loomed over the teenager.
"Of course," he resumed, "I'd need a show of good faith from you so I know I'm not wasting my time."
Wagner licked his lips. "Like what?"
Gunther shrugged. "I don't know. Not much-barely anything, really. Just something to make me feel we're communicating. That you're going to be straight with me. I mean, I remember when we busted you for the Army Navy heist, you lied your head off, which kind of hurt my feelings, since we all knew you'd done it. See what I mean?"
Another awkward silence stretched between them. "What do I have to do?" Jaime asked in a near whisper.
Joe scratched his head, pretending to think. He'd spent half an hour interviewing the cop who'd dealt with Jaime most recently, learning how best to manipulate him. He suddenly snapped his fingers. "I know."
Wagner gave a small jump in his seat.
"You know John Moser?"
The young man's face closed down. "I guess."
Joe was smiling. "There you are. A perfect show of faith. I tell you what. This'll be like a small test. We've got John down the hall, being interviewed. All I want you to do is identify him-just tell me if the guy we've got is really John Moser-and then you're free to go."
Jaime looked confused. "But you know who he is."
Joe beamed. "Exactly. No risk to you." He leaned forward and helped Jaime to his feet by grabbing his shirt sleeve. "Look, it's like a positive reinforcement thing. I just have to feel you're with me on this. I gotta feel good about my commitment to you, okay?"
But Jaime was dragging his feet and shook his arm free. "Why're you talking to John?"
Gunther's voice hardened slightly. "That's not your concern. What you need to worry about is still being on probation and needing to make me happy." He gently but firmly placed his hand against Wagner's chest and pushed him up against the wall. "Tell me something, Jaime: What am I asking you to do here?"
The boy looked at him in surprise, groping for the right answer. "Name John?"
"Did I mention in what context? Or did I just say name him?"
"Just name him."
Joe leaned into him just a touch harder. "And what happens if you don't do that and only that?"
Wagner was starting to look seriously baffled. "I don't know."
Joe stepped back and smiled. "Right. And you don't want to. You ready to help me out now?"
Jaime's shoulders slumped in defeat. "I guess so."
Joe slapped him on the shoulder. "What're you worried about? You think John might get pissed? About what? You doing anything wrong here?"