He didn’t answer.

  “You done talking to us, Milo?” Still no response.

  I tried one last time. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a five-dollar bill and extended it to him. He shifted his gaze to the bill. “Take it.”

  He hesitated.

  “No strings. I don’t know why you tried to jerk us around. I know word’s gotten out we’re looking for whoever was under that bridge, so maybe you thought it would be a lark to be him. Maybe someone threatened you or paid you off to do this. Beats me. But understand something, Milo. Whoever really was under that bridge had better watch his ass, because there’s someone looking for him, the same guy who’s killed two other people. So spread the word around. Tell whoever it is to come to us, or we’ll all be going to his funeral.”

  Again, there was a long silence in the room.

  “Is that all?” he muttered.

  “Yeah. You can leave if you’d like. Call us if you want to talk more.”

  Milo rose to his feet, pulling the five dollars from between my fingers as he did so. He shambled out the door silently, leaving it open behind him.

  Sammie looked at me with a crestfallen expression. “I’m really sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Somebody tells you he’s somebody else, you believe it. It’s natural.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “At first I did. You would’ve tumbled to him eventually; his story was pretty leaky. Anyway, maybe it’ll do some good. If he spreads the word around, we might get lucky.” I got up and stretched. “Well, I’m hitting the hay. Tell Dispatch I’ll be at home, will you?”

  Twenty minutes later, as I walked around opening windows and turning on fans in my apartment, I mulled over what we had so far. Two dead bodies, one an up-and-coming successful businessman with an unconventional past history and a hyperactive interest in sex and drugs; the other a lowbrow hustler and petty thief found in possession of enough narcotics to make a big-time dealer proud. Was Jardine financing Milly Crawford? Did Milly kill Jardine and then get killed in turn? If so, then by whom? Did John Woll kill Jardine out of jealousy? It made sense, but it didn’t explain the connection between Milly and Woll, unless, of course, drugs were the motive, and not jealousy. There had been cases where cops had been used as protection by drug dealers, but that didn’t seem to fit here. John Woll was a low-ranking patrolman and had not, as far as I knew, had anything to do with drug investigations within the department.

  Plus there was the assumption that John, if dirty, had transported Jardine’s body in his patrol car, while on duty, to bury it in full view of any potential passerby. If he’d been that stupid, then why should I believe he was now cunning enough to kill Milly and stalk whatever bum might have seen him from under the bridge? Why so paranoid now if he’d been so careless and nonchalant initially?

  And what of Tucker Wentworth and Arthur Clyde? What had two older, successful, veteran financiers seen in a local high-school graduate with an undistinguished string of minimum-wage service jobs in his wake? Were they as successful as they appeared? Had the lure of drug money caught their interest and led them to employ both Jardine and Milly Crawford as part of their organization? If so, then what had gone wrong? From all appearances, Milly hadn’t really begun to tap into his chemical treasure trove—he’d been nipped in the bud and his product left for us to collect. His murder, I still felt, had been a risky, unplanned affair, committed to shut him up fast, not because he’d been guilty of any transgression. What had it been that he could have told us?

  And then there was Blaire Wentworth, reputedly a devoted daughter, and apparently one of Jardine’s lovers. Where did she fit? And was Rose Woll as innocent and unrealistic as she seemed?

  I lay on top of my bed, naked, the two fans I’d placed on either side of me moving just enough air to keep me from soaking the sheets with sweat. As much as I needed sleep, I knew my mind would not shut down easily. It would keep working, mulling over the angles, applying less and less logic as my thoughts became more like dreams.

  Indeed, when I finally did fall asleep, it was to the image of Luman Jackson, laughing maniacally, dragging the entire police department into court for “willfully ignoring the wishes of a town father,” while a shadowy figure, his hands red with blood, faded gradually to the extreme limit of my vision and then vanished.

  17

  THE MORNING EDITION OF THE Brattleboro Reformer proved worse than I’d imagined. The body we had dug up the day before was identified as Charlie Jardine, Milly Crawford’s murder was described as having taken place under our noses, and the drug seizure came across less as a coup and more as dumb luck.

  The editorial didn’t help. It bemoaned a world in which a small, almost rural town like Brattleboro could become the target of drug traffic and questioned the police department’s ability to stem the potential “coming tide.” The hand-wringing prose reflected the paper’s new scarlet banner and made me nostalgic for the tough-minded but clear-sighted Reformer of old.

  Indeed, both the neighboring Keene Sentinel and Greenfield Reporter, which had also clarioned our troubles across their front pages, seemed downright muted in comparison.

  On the other hand, despite Katz’s vague promise, more shocking revelations were conspicuously absent. Both ABC Investments and Morris, McGill were mentioned, but only as places of employment. Either Stanley had shied away, or he was biding his time. I wasn’t putting money on the first.

  Predictably, the mood in the squad room was thunderous. Dennis DeFlorio was sputtering as he read one of the ten copies of the Reformer that were scattered around like oversized confetti: “‘Police were noncommittal about the timing of their arrival at the murder scene, but from their promptness and from overheard radio transmissions between mobile police units and their dispatcher, it was apparent one or more of them had been positioned near Horton Place before Mr. Crawford was killed, for reasons unexplained. Later, one police officer was overheard saying, “He really pulled the rug out from under us,” referring apparently to the murderer.’ Can you believe this shit? I bet that son of a bitch quoted himself.”

  They were all there, including Sammie Martens, who looked like she hadn’t gotten any sleep at all. I walked to the door of the meeting room and gestured to everyone to follow me. Harriet brought up the rear, yellow legal pad in hand.

  I sat at the head of the table and waited for them to settle down. “We’re going to have to ignore the press reports as much as possible. With the change of management at the Reformer I think we’ll all be seeing some pretty sensational stuff, a lot of which is going to get under our skin. This is the first time something this big has come their way, and the local editor is trying to satisfy his Midwestern bosses. So, either get used to it or change subscriptions.” I didn’t add that if the politicians got warmed up, the press would be the least of our problems.

  “At least Ted’s playing it straight,” someone muttered.

  That much was true. On my short drive in, I’d tuned in to several radio reports. McDonald, the only local newscaster, had been his usual brief, straight, and to-the-point self. I guessed it helped when you had no time to editorialize. Ted, unlike Stan Katz, didn’t have the luxury of a single story and thirty column inches to fill. To McDonald, we were merely the lead item in a four-minute summary, including the weather. Indeed, I often thought that my colleagues’ preference for McDonald over Katz was based solely on Ted’s inability to take up as much of their time with his reporting. Personally, while I found him by far the more unpleasant of the two, Katz got my nod as the better journalist. It was an opinion, however, that wild horses couldn’t drag out of me in public.

  I pointed the end of my pencil at Dennis. “What’s the bottom line on the Milly canvass?”

  Dennis gave a sour expression. “Whoever killed him really did pull the rug out from under us. We’ve interviewed everyone who lives on that street, and nobody saw a thing. A few people heard things, like Dummy shouting and you coming upstairs. A woman right below Milly’s place said she heard footsteps just before the shouting, but she didn’t pay any attention to it until later, after all hell had broken loose.”

  “No one heard the door to number 21 being broken?” I asked.

  “Not specifically. Like I said, people heard things, but they can’t, or won’t, peg them down.”

  “J.P.?”

  Tyler cleared his throat. “From the evidence, it appears the shooter nailed Milly with a silenced 9-millimeter as he opened the door. He then hid in the apartment until Dummy went to the balcony, raced downstairs, broke into number 21 until you passed him on the way up, and escaped. It was a highly risky operation, successful only out of dumb luck.”

  “And a pair of brass balls,” DeFlorio muttered.

  “That’s a good point,” I interjected. “It did take balls, which brings up the major question here: Why did he kill Milly when he did?”

  There was silence around the table, as when a teacher asks a question so apparently moronic that no one dares answer for fear it’s a trap. “So we couldn’t get to him first,” Ron finally said in a soft voice.

  “That’s what I think, which might mean Milly could have fingered Jardine’s killer. Remember: That’s why we were there, to ask Milly about his involvement with Jardine. Does anybody here have a problem linking these two cases together?”

  “I don’t have a problem with it, but I don’t think we should ignore the possibility that it was sheer coincidence.”

  That was Tyler, of course, applying the scientific leveler.

  I pointed my pencil at him. “What have you got on the dope?”

  “It’s a little early to tell. The total amount of cocaine was two pounds, just under a kilo; there were nine and a half pounds of marijuana, about four point five kilos; and there were two plastic bags of Bennies, Nebbies, and Blue Birds, all mixed together.”

  “What are Blue Birds?” Harriet asked, taking notes.

  “Amytal—it’s a barbiturate. I sent the coke north for analysis, but from what I tested, I’d say Milly’s import was about eighty percent pure, and if the sample we found at Jardine’s came from Milly, then he was stepping on it hard, like down to twenty-five or thirty percent. Of course, in this market he could do that and get away with it. They’re used to shitty stuff.”

  “How many one-ounce packets could he make that way?” I asked.

  “One hundred, maybe more, but he wouldn’t sell it that way, not at two thousand dollars per ounce. He’d sell it by the gram, for maybe fifty to a hundred bucks. In those quantities, he could supply twenty-eight hundred customers.”

  “And make two hundred and eighty thousand dollars?” Dennis whistled.

  Tyler hesitated. “Well, that would be on the fat side, and I’m guessing a lot here. Still, he would have cleaned up.”

  “I take it you got the results back on the Jardine sample?” I asked.

  Tyler shook a sheet of paper before him. “This morning.”

  “Is there any way you can prove Milly processed it?”

  “Not prove like in a court of law, but I’m pretty sure he did. It was cut in the same proportion as the few prepared samples we found at Milly’s apartment, and they were both cut with mannitol.”

  The numbers Tyler had rattled off put a depressing pall on the group. Kilos of cocaine were what Tubbs and Crockett played with on “Miami Vice,” complete with fast boats, submachine guns, and rock-and-roll theme music. Earlier, the mere mention of a single kilo in Brattleboro, Vermont, would have struck a similar fictional chord.

  I turned to Klesczewski. “Ron, you’re our resident expert in drug affairs. Why would Milly need that much? There aren’t twenty-eight-hundred coke-sniffers in this town.”

  “There probably are throughout the state.”

  Again there was silence. The suggestion had been obvious, and the fact that I hadn’t thought of it revealed how hesitant I was to truly grasp the significance of all this.

  Ron continued. “You might want to talk to Willy Kunkle, Joe. He knew the drug scene inside out when he was here. I’m just learning still.”

  I nodded. He was right. Kunkle had made the town’s underbelly his specialty, applying his mercurial moods and brutal methods where we could see them least. In the office, he’d been a dark beast of sorts, sour and distrustful, supposedly given to hitting his now-divorced wife during his off hours. Many of his fellow officers had been delighted when a sniper’s bullet permanently disabled him and forced him into retirement. But Ron was right. In his way, Kunkle was an educated man, and I would have to visit him. Later.

  “All right,” I said. “Here’re a few things to think about, then. Milly Crawford was sitting on enough coke to make him a wealthy man. Where and how did he get it, along with the money to buy it in the first place? Someone killed him just before we could talk to him. Why? Furthermore, assuming the drugs were part of the reason he was killed, why were they left in his apartment? Why was his death more important to his killer than a quarter-million-dollars’ worth of dope? Was Jardine the moneyman and Milly the processor? If so, then who killed them—a third partner wanting more, or a competitor? Keep all that in mind as we go along, as well as J.P.’s suggestion that we may be dealing with two separate, unrelated homicides whose coincidences are screwing us up. It’s not impossible that while Milly and Jardine were somehow linked, Jardine’s killer might merely have been a jealous husband who knew nothing about his dope dealing.”

  There were some murmurs at that and some comments about both cases in general. I wrapped up the meeting by asking what else might be worth sharing before we broke up.

  Harriet handed me some legal paperwork. “This is the affidavit for a search warrant for Jardine’s business records. I had Sue Davis at the SA’s office review it; she wasn’t thrilled but said that was the judge’s business. So,” she smiled sweetly, “you have an appointment with Judge Harrowsmith in twenty minutes across the street.”

  I thanked her, took the papers, and checked my watch. “Ron, are you and Dennis available to grab those papers as soon as I get the warrant?”

  They both nodded.

  “Okay. We’ll meet back here in half an hour. I want Dennis to dig into that stuff as soon as you get it. Harriet, maybe you can help out. Call Justin Willette if you run into anything that throws you. He’s in the book under stockbrokers; he’s helped us in the past.”

  We all rose and began filing out of the room. I stopped Ron Klesczewski at the door. “How did you manage with those four names on Milly’s list?”

  “I got a line on Mark Cappelli at E-Z Hauling. He’s a truck driver, due back from a trip later this morning. I was planning to meet him when he arrived.”

  “I might join you, if that’s all right.”

  He seemed pleased. “Sure. Thomas and Atwater are still at the bank—the one listed in the directory—and I figured we could chase them down at our convenience. Hanson I still don’t know.”

  “How about Jardine’s phone records?”

  “I’ve got a list going. Nothing I can nail directly to…” His voice dropped and he looked around for eavesdroppers. “You know… John, but there’re about fifteen numbers that crop up regularly; most of them are women, but about a third are men.”

  I shook my head. Even considering the number of people I’d come to know outside this town over the decades, I would have been hard put to collect a list that big from my long-distance phone records. Ron was going to have his work cut out for him interviewing them all, with or without help. “Is Blaire Wentworth one of them?” I remembered Plummer saying the Wentworths lived outside of Brattleboro.

  He looked surprised. “Yeah. How did you know that?”

  “She’s the owner of the blouse. I should have mentioned that at the meeting; it’ll be in my daily report Harriet is typing up. I’m going to see if I can chase her down after I see Harrowsmith, so you can cross her off your list.”

  He grimaced. “Thanks a heap. She’s probably the best-looking in the bunch.”

  “I hope so.”

  The District Courthouse had been built on the sharp point of the isosceles triangle formed by Park Place at the base, and Putney Road and Linden Street on the sides; it was also right across Linden from the Municipal Building. Despite certain similarities, such as the fact that they were both built of red brick and had oversized dormers defining their rooflines, the new courthouse was as different from its former abode as Charles Dickens is from Harold Robbins. Where the older building exuded a sense of creaky antiquity and cooped-up dusty nooks and crannies, the newer one looked fresh and airy and sunlit.

  Which it was, for the most part. It was also a rabbit warren of hallways, offices, and dozens upon dozens of doors. Keeping the public from the staff, and both of them from the inhabitants of the holding cells, necessitated a staggering number of locked barriers. I walked and/or parlayed my way through six or seven of these before I was ushered into the antiseptic wool, wood, and whitewalled retreat of the Honorable Alfred J. Harrowsmith.

  He greeted me noncommittally and read through the affidavit. Watching his profile—bushy eyebrows, hawk nose supporting half-glasses, a strong lantern jaw over a skinny, sinewy neck—I felt like a small boy in knee socks presenting a report card to his grandfather. The rules all but require the requesting officer to present the affidavit in person so he can answer any questions the judge might have, although it is wise to have already anticipated those questions in the wording of the application. The goal of the process is to establish that “more probably than not,” there is justification for the issuing of a warrant. In other words, fifty-one-percent or more probable cause. I was hoping I had that much.

  Harrowsmith stopped reading, looked ahead for a moment as if collecting his thoughts, and then turned to me. “Any reason to suspect that Mr. Jardine’s business dealings had anything to do with his death?”

  “Suspect? Absolutely, but we can’t be certain till we look at his records. Certainly the connections between Jardine and Wentworth grow stronger the more we dig, and Wentworth played a major part in the creation of ABC Investments. He introduced the two partners and might have had a hand in supplying some of the start-up funds.”