“I just hung up on Hillstrom. She found a tiny piece of electrical wire inside Jasper Morgan’s body. When I was interviewing Randy Haskins in that apartment, he was picking at a small patch sewn into an old electric blanket covering the sofa. I remember because I saw the wires dangling out one end of it.”
They both looked at me blankly.
“Bouch took the blanket off Morgan’s bed and brought it to Burlington?” Sammie asked incredulously.
“Did you find anything personal belonging to Morgan in that motel room?” I countered.
“No.”
“No pants or shirt or anything else, right? The place was cleaned out, just in case people like Marie Williams came snooping around later. Assuming Morgan ran for it right after he’d been shot, there probably wasn’t much blood on the blanket. So why waste it, when all it needed was a small repair?”
Jonathon was smiling. “Might be a question to ask Jan tomorrow morning. She was probably asked to patch it.”
“And in the meantime, we can get another search warrant and pick it up for a lab analysis.”
He began moving away. “I’ll call Kathy.”
“I’ve got a courier going to Burlington in a few minutes if she needs something signed by either one of us.”
He waved acknowledgement over his shoulder and vanished into my office.
“Even if Jan identifies it,” Sammie warned me, “it won’t take you far.”
I smiled at her, sensing at long last the first spidery signs of a real break developing. “Every bit counts, Sam, even the little ones.”
Early the following morning, Jonathon Michael and I were sitting on a bench in an inner hallway of the Windham County Courthouse, outside the spacious office of Judge Rachael Aumand. Inside were Jan Bouch, the judge, Kathy Bartlett, a stenographer, and the battered electric blanket we’d retrieved from the Burlington apartment.
When I’d picked her up just after sunrise, Jan had looked terrible-pale, nervous, teary, and obviously sleepless. She’d protested that she’d changed her mind, which I’d been expecting, and proclaimed Norm to be the victim of a miserable childhood. It had taken me an hour to turn her around, and I was by no means convinced the conversation would last three minutes into the inquest.
It had been over an hour, however, and we hadn’t heard a peep yet.
“If she does nail that blanket to Norm,” I said quietly, my voice echoing off the bright, pristine walls, “maybe we should issue that BOL on him.”
“Why?”
“Jasper’s dead, Lenny’s under wraps, Jan and the kids are in protective custody, Steve Kiley’s got every task force CI working to find out where Norm is and what he’s up to, and Greg Davis has the whole BFPD interviewing everyone who ever knew him. He’d have to be on another planet not to know we’re after him. And if he did pop Jasper, he’ll be twitchy as hell and prone to use a gun again. I don’t want anyone approaching him without knowing all that.”
“Works for me,” Jonathon said after a short pause. “What did your toxicologist friend come up with?”
I’d told Jonathon of Padget’s theory about the aftershave, but I hadn’t heard back from Isador Gramm until early this morning. “Brian was right. It was laced with pure coke-a perfect match to what they found in his system, and nowhere close to the stuff in the toilet tank.”
“Which makes it ‘Good news, bad news’?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “A plausible scenario for how it got inside him, but not proof he didn’t spike the aftershave later and pretend he suddenly had a bright idea. Still, it doesn’t hurt him any.”
A woman poked her head through a doorway halfway down the hall. “Phone for you, Joe.”
I followed her into a large room with several desks scattered about. She ushered me into a glass-walled cubicle along the wall, told me to push the blinking button on the phone, and closed the door as she left.
I picked up the receiver. “Gunther.”
“It’s Kiley. We put feelers out as soon as you called last night. The only thing we got so far is some guy who sounds like he pulled the same stunt Bouch did. He dropped out of sight yesterday-totally. His name’s Peter Neal, works mostly out of the Montpelier/Barre area. There’s a chance he’s one of Bouch’s lieutenants. We heard he runs kids like the others did.”
“Could he have left the state to make a buy or something?”
“That’s what I asked, but disappearing without warning doesn’t fit his routine. There’s a buzz about it in his social circle.”
“You think he might’ve been hit?” I asked.
“Things’ve been peaceful in that area. I called the local PDs to see what they had. They confirmed Neal’s a probable dealer, but he’s known to keep his cards to himself-neat and tidy. All I got is the coincidence of Bouch and this guy pulling a vanishing act at the same time.”
I thought for a couple of seconds. It was interesting information-it was also payback in the subtlest of forms. In Steve Kiley’s eyes, we’d run roughshod over his task force. His revenge had been to deliver the goods in a timely, effective manner. “Point taken,” I thought.
Out loud, however, I said, “It can’t be coincidence. He must’ve cut and run.”
“From us?”
“From us, from Bouch. From what we’ve found out, you don’t want to be near Norm when things go sour. I don’t guess the local PDs have bothered finding out where Neal might be.”
“Nope.”
“Could I ask you a big favor, then?”
I could almost hear him smiling at the phone. “You can try.”
“If we’re right about Neal, then he’s probably run to neutral ground where he hopes nobody can find him-from either side. I’d love to get this one. You think you could squeeze his contacts till one of them fesses up? He has to have left a forwarding address somewhere.”
“I think we can do that.”
“Thanks Steve. I owe you a big one.”
“Yes, you do.”
I returned to join Jonathon on the bench, filling him in on Kiley’s discovery, including the latter’s satisfied sense of irony.
Twenty minutes later, the door to Judge Aumand’s office opened, and Kathy emerged with a tear-stained Jan Bouch. Kathy caught my eye from behind Jan’s back and gave me a thumbs-up.
I rose and took Jan’s hands in my own. “You feeling okay?”
Looking at the floor, she merely shook her head.
“You’ve done a harder thing than most people will ever have to do. We all appreciate it. It’ll get easier from here on. You’re with good people-they’ll see you and the kids get what you need.”
One of the Women For Women staffers appeared at the far end of the corridor to take Jan back to the shelter, apparently summoned by Kathy from inside the judge’s chambers. I released Jan’s hands and patted her on the shoulder. “Don’t hesitate to call if you want, okay?”
She kept silent as the staffer gathered her up and escorted her back up the hallway. The three of us waited until she was gone.
“Arsene Gault. That name ring any bells?” Kathy asked immediately.
“It does with me,” Jonathon answered. “We’ve nailed him before for fraudulent business dealings. He’s a Realtor in Springfield.”
Kathy Bartlett explained. “Jan said his was the one name she heard time and again in connection to Norm, either when he’d mention it in passing, or when Gault would leave phone messages. As far as she knows, he never came by the house, and she never saw Norm meet him when they were out and about together. But the phone calls were frequent.”
“Money laundering?” I asked.
“It would fit,” Jonathon answered. “Gault deals mostly in dumps, selling to people with no sense and less money. He’s got the scruples of a cockroach.”
“Did Jan ever see Norm dealing drugs?” I asked Kathy.
She rolled her eyes. “Not that she told me. I must admit, I’ve had better witnesses. Most of the time, I was handing her Kleenexes. I didn’t get a hell of a lot more than what I just told you. The blanket was a home run, though. About the time Morgan disappeared, Norm dumped it in her lap and told her to wash and mend it. She said she didn’t notice any blood on it at the time and had no idea where it came from or ended up. Still, a jury loves that kind of thing.