Bellows Falls (22 page)

The three of us found Tim driving a computer instead, hunched forward in his office chair, staring at the screen as if willing it to confess. He looked up at us with obvious relief as Audrey knocked on his open door.

He rose to his feet, a wide smile on his face. “Hey, look who’s here. Jonathon, Joe, good to see you. Christ, it’s been a year or more. What’ve you been up to?”

While he spoke, he circled his desk, shook our hands, pulled chairs from the corners, and generally fussed enough to make his Italian-born mother proud. As soon as we were all seated, Audrey brought the mood to a focus by handing him a printout of what we’d found.

Tim read its contents and raised his eyebrows. “Ah,” was all he said at first, with the kind of enthusiasm one reserves for unpleasant discoveries. He placed the sheet face down on his desk and asked me, “What’s up with this guy?”

“We think he’s working for a dope dealer in Bellows Falls—part of a network. Jon and I were hoping to talk to him.”

“You’re running that crooked cop case, right? Does this tie in?”

“We think so,” Jon said. “But we’re not sure yet.”

Giordi steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “The reason Audrey brought this to me is because Lenny Markham is an informant.”

He didn’t need to say much more. I now understood both his and Audrey’s reactions. Confidential informants—CIs in police jargon—ran the gamut from the vaguely reliable bum on the corner to the shifty-eyed undercover operatives so popular in the movies. Regardless of where they are in the pecking order, however, they are jealously kept by their individual police handlers. The breaking of a case often hinges on the availability and reliability of a CI, so the officer with the most or best of them does well to tend his or her flock. Unfortunately, this attitude isn’t entirely altruistic. In a competitive market with limited upward mobility, officers see their sources as money in the bank. What everyone in that room understood was that we wanted access to someone whose handler was likely to voice a very strong objection.

Giordi checked his watch and picked up the phone, muttering, “Excuse me a second,” as he did so. He dialed an internal number and said to whoever answered, “It’s Tim Giordi. We need to talk. I just got an interagency cooperation request involving Lenny Markham. Give me five minutes to clear out my office, okay? Thanks.”

He hung up and looked at us apologetically. “I hate to do this, but I better run this by Lenny’s contact. Audrey, why don’t you introduce these two to the soda machine or something? I’ll page you in a bit.”

We filed out and followed his advice, silently marching toward the refreshment machines to stare at the offerings. There was no question that we’d eventually get access to Lenny Markham. The attorney general of the state of Vermont wasn’t likely to let a case be derailed because of some cop’s desire to keep his sources to himself. But it was a delicate matter. The spirit of interagency cooperation was still in its infancy, with everyone paying it lip service, and many privately fighting it tooth and nail. And while the AG’s jurisdiction extended to the state’s borders, his success was often linked to the vagaries of local politics.

“I wonder who he’s talking to,” Audrey mused, her eyes fixed on a small bag of corn chips with a suspiciously fluorescent glow to them.

Fifteen minutes later, we trooped back into Giordi’s office, summoned by a disembodied voice over the building’s P.A. system. As we crossed the threshold, I just barely heard Audrey groan and knew right then we were in for some negotiating.

The man sitting opposite the chief of detectives wasn’t happy. He didn’t get up as we entered, didn’t offer to shake hands, and generally regarded us as if we’d just doubled his mortgage payments.

Giordi nodded in his direction as soon as we’d settled down. “This is Duncan Fasca, Lenny Markham’s contact inside the department. Given the sensitive relationship between a contact and his CI, Duncan had a few questions about your interest in Lenny.”

I glanced from Fasca to Tim and back again, picking up on Giordi’s almost stilted manner. Not only had the conversation obviously not gone well between them, but they clearly didn’t like one another in the first place. I gave Fasca an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry we stepped right into the middle of things. We had no idea Lenny had ties to the PD. We heard about him through visits he used to make to a Lawrence, Mass, guy named Norm Bouch—he’s actually the one we’re after. At first, we just wanted to find out what Lenny could tell us about Bouch, but I got to admit, it’s starting to look like he and Lenny are working together. You hear about the homicide in Brattleboro—the blood in the abandoned motel and no body?”

Fasca spoke for the first time. “What of it?”

“We’re pretty sure the dead man worked for Bouch, too—was Lenny’s Brattleboro counterpart. We think Bouch runs a juvenile drug ring using regional lieutenants.”

Fasca looked at me incredulously. “Markham’s running a dope ring? Here in town? What kind of evidence do you have?”

“Witnesses to conversations between Bouch and him,” I said vaguely. “But that’s why we want to talk to him. To nail a few things down.”

“A fishing expedition,” Fasca said. He looked at his boss. “I expose Lenny to other cops, he’ll stop working for me. Just ’cause his name came up in a conversation.”

“When you set up Lenny as a CI, you knew he was no choirboy,” Giordi answered stiffly. “Isn’t it possible he could be doing this without your knowledge?”

That put Duncan in a corner. If he said no and we proved him wrong, he’d look like an idiot. If he said yes, then all room for objection evaporated. My mention of Jasper’s homicide hadn’t been anecdotal. I’d brought it up to show that Lenny could be tied to a capital case—and that Duncan Fasca should tread carefully.

He steered for middle ground. “Maybe.”

I saw the hint of a smile appear on Jonathon’s face, which made me careful not to gloat. “Duncan, look. I know what a pain in the ass this is. But by your own admission, Lenny could be dirty, which means his time may be up anyhow. Why don’t you come on board with us and show these guys the price of playing both ends against the middle? We could go after him ourselves, but it would be a lot easier with your help.”

Fasca shook his head, his face an angry scowl. “That’s easy for you. If it turns out to be a wild-goose chase, you haven’t lost a thing. I end up with a snitch who never talks to me again. This guy’s good. He’s been real useful to me. You know that, Chief. I don’t want to be run over by a bunch of hotshots from out of town who could give a shit what they leave behind.”

“I don’t think that’s the case here,” Giordi said, his voice carrying a veiled warning.

Reluctantly, Fasca had all but conceded. “Yeah, well, like I said, easy to say.”

“You join us, you can find out for yourself,” I suggested. “If you’re interested, I’d like you in on the initial meet. You can steer the conversation yourself. That way, if we all agree we’re barking up the wrong tree, maybe you won’t lose him.”

Fasca didn’t answer immediately, but by now his resistance was purely for show. “He might not play if he knows I’m bringing someone.”

The answer to that was too obvious to mention. The room remained silent a few moments longer, until Fasca finally threw in the glove. “All right, I’m screwed either way, so I might as well go along.”

He suddenly leaned forward and stared at Tim Giordi. “But I want it known I’m doing it under protest, okay?”

Tim kept a straight face. “You got it, Duncan. Why don’t you pull what you’ve got on Lenny?” He jerked a thumb at Jonathon and me. “They’ll be wanting a full profile on him prior to any meeting. I’ll send them your way as soon as I’m through.”

Fasca heaved himself out of his chair and nodded sharply in our direction. He left without saying a word. The mood in the air instantly lightened. Jonathon raised his eyebrows at me. “You sure giving him that much clout was a good idea?”

Giordi answered for me. “He’s not much on manners, but Duncan’s a hard worker. You point him in the right direction, and he’ll chew through walls. He just has to feel he’s got some element of control. I appreciate what you did, Joe, and I think you’ll be happy with the results.”

· · ·

Duncan Fasca was as good as Tim Giordi’s word. He took Jonathon, Audrey, and me to a small conference room and briefed us for over an hour on everything he knew of Lenny Markham, which, as it turned out, left ample room for Lenny to be functioning as we suspected he was. To my eyes, he was a classic hustler, working every angle, faithful to no one. Reviewing Fasca’s limited perspective on him, I thought back to the context in which we’d first heard Lenny’s name. Molly Bremmer had described him not as Norm’s trainee but more as a colleague. Given the insight I had now, I wondered if Norm had recruited Lenny, or if Lenny had smelled an opportunity. If the latter were true, then the relationship between the two of them became more complex—and possibly more dangerous.

The briefing was valuable for another reason. It allowed us to see Duncan in his element, showing off his work, sharing his insights. I could see Jonathon Michael getting used to the man and growing to accept him. He was as Giordi had described him—tenacious, persistent, and not very appealing—but he was also insightful in his way, and certainly knowledgeable about his beat. What he told us of Lenny was at least as useful for what it revealed about Burlington, which unfortunately for me resulted in a slight dampening of my admiration for the town. As eclectic and appealing as it remained, the Queen City’s tattered petticoats were now exposed, and I found them depressingly familiar.

Nevertheless, by the time Duncan Fasca finally reached for the phone and called Lenny Markham for a meeting—“one on one”—I felt I knew enough about our target to be comfortable talking with him.

The phone call didn’t last long. Both speakers were used to the routine. Duncan hung up after a couple of minutes and announced, “Flynn Theatre, tomorrow morning, ten o’clock, on the grid. He’s got a job there.”

Jon looked at him quizzically.

“The grid,” Audrey explained, surprising us all, “is like a huge metal catwalk, ’bout forty feet over the stage. It’s a good way to get around, and to see without being seen, but it’s not a place for people who don’t like heights.”

In the silence that greeted her explanation, she added, “I had a summer job at the Flynn once. It’s a beautiful old place—lots of nooks and crannies.”

“Which is probably why he chose it,” Jonathon said unhappily. “Is it safe?”

Duncan waved his concern away. “The Vermont Symphony Orchestra’ll be practicing at the same time, for Christ’s sake. It’s not like it’s the North End at midnight. He chose it ’cause he’s there anyway, and none of his cronies would be caught dead in a real theater, that’s all. He doesn’t want to blow his cover.”

A young woman poked her head through the doorway. “Is there a Joe Gunther in here?”

I raised my hand. “Yeah.”

“You have a call on line three.”

I thanked her and picked up the phone on the conference table. “Gunther.”

“It’s J.P. I think we found Jasper Morgan.”

IT WAS DARK BY THE TIME
Jon and I reached Brattleboro, and raining harder than I would have thought possible outside a movie set. The water fell in a torrent, pouring off roofs of cars and buildings in hundreds of cascades, gathering in the streets like a diverted river.

I pulled into the abandoned motel’s parking lot, now staked out with yellow “Police” barrier tape and occupied by a number of official vehicles. My shoes vanished underwater as soon as I stepped from the car, and I instantly felt the first cool, wet trickles of rain slipping in between my raincoat and neck.

Wearing high boots and slickers, and opening umbrellas over their heads, J.P. Tyler and Gail emerged from the lobby entrance to greet us.

“Christ,” I told them, “has it been raining like this for long? I’ve felt like I needed gills since we hit this side of the state.”

“About an hour,” Gail answered, slipping her arm through mine so we could better share her umbrella. “It just opened up. From Bellows Falls north they’ve been getting hammered all afternoon. It wasn’t even sprinkling here till this hit.”

“That’s what prompted me to use the dogs now,” J.P. almost shouted over the sound of the water. “The weather’s supposed to be bad for days, and I didn’t want to wait.”

Jon asked the obvious. “What dogs?”

“J.P. had cadaver dogs brought in from Maine,” Gail explained.

“I thought with the huge amount of blood,” he added, “and the relative freshness of the scene, we might get lucky.” He gestured around to the side of the building. “It’s over here. I’ll tell you on the way.”

We waded over to the side of the parking lot and down a slippery grass embankment, heading for the rear of the old motel and an overgrown, scrub-choked wasteland similar to much of what lurks behind the Putney Road’s storefronts.

“Of course,” Tyler continued, “freshness isn’t that big a deal. These dogs have found bodies up to twenty-one years postmortem. But the weather—before this shit hit us—was ideal for a search. Not too hot, nice gentle breezes at both ends of the day, open land for the most part. Dogs need to locate and trace what they call the cone of the scent, and everything I could see looked good for that. I also really liked the layout of the scene.” He waved his arm at the soaking darkness around us. “Dead adult body, quasi-urban environment, the shooter and probably one other with him… It was likely the corpse hadn’t been carried too far, and buried fast and not too deep.

“Anyhow,” he summed up, “it worked. The handler arrived with two dogs, started with just one, and inside an hour we had what we were looking for.”

Following his powerful flashlight’s beam, which sparkled madly from the millions of prismatic raindrops in its path, we crested a small rise and came to a narrow field in front of a solid wall of trees. Before us was a large tent, spilling brilliant light like a huge overturned cup of milk, and sheltering a half dozen people clustered around a dismally familiar excavation.