Gunther leaned forward, placing both hands flat on the table before him. "Dick, we've known each other a long time, worked cases together. I'm asking you to do whatever you think is right. Of all the people who've been watching the VBI, I figure you're one of the few who really understand what we're trying to do. Sure as hell, when I think back to past conversations, you and I were pretty consistent about how we would all benefit from a lot less rivalry."
But Allen already had both hands up in mock surrender. "I hear you, Joe. Keep in mind, though, that my influence has been greatly exaggerated and barely exists among the younger generation." He got to his feet as Gunther was doing, and took up the small motor in the palm of his hand-a man only truly at ease when holding something mechanical.
They walked together toward Joe's car as Dick Allen added, "But I will keep an eye out and do what I can."
That couldn't hurt, Joe thought as he drove back down the dirt road. He didn't underestimate for a moment the true value of Allen's influence. What rankled him still, however, was that he was having to do this in the first place. As valuable as he truly believed his agency to be, he hated that it was being treated as a political pawn, and imperiled in the process.
His longing for credibility wasn't just so others would see the VBI as something of value. It was also so that its members could be awarded the respect they'd worked so hard to acquire.
In this world of self-interest at the cost of almost everything else, where the invocation of the "good old days" was too often a veil to hide inefficiency and blind chauvinism, this debate about creating a better law enforcement model had become an issue with Joe-something he hoped he could see taking root by the time he retired.
Except that like an aging knight of some idealized but mythological Round Table, he was growing both wary and weary of the ceaseless assaults of close-minded and manipulative selfishness.
* * *
Back in Springfield, on Summer Street, Lester Spinney gently closed the door to his car, as he did on surveillance when he didn't want to attract attention. Except that this time he was in his own garage, in the middle of the afternoon.
He walked through the door connecting the garage to the kitchen and stood there for a while, listening. Susan was at work, Dave at his part-time summer job, Wendy was spending a couple of days at a friend's house in Chester. The house was totally empty It suddenly occurred to him that he might never have experienced this before-being the only one here. When they'd bought the place ten years ago, they were already a family, and despite some routine comments from him about never having a moment alone, he had never seriously pursued it. Now that he had, and without telling a soul, it made him feel devious and underhanded.
He'd taken a detour from work, driving from a court appearance in White River back to Brattleboro, taking advantage of the opportunity to do something he hated to do.
Slowly, walking so his heels didn't strike the floor with any sound, Lester left the kitchen, crossed the living room, and headed toward the staircase leading upstairs. He imagined this was what it felt like to burgle someone's house, being attuned to every sound, and especially to the off chance that somebody might walk in. The fact that he knew every inch of the place, however, and could connect a dozen memories to every item in it tainted the fantasy and only increased his discomfort.
He climbed the stairs to the second floor and turned left, passing by Wendy's open door on his way to the end of the hall. He paused to glance in on her bedroom, as he'd done so often following a late night assignment when he'd missed dinner yet again-not to check on her so much as to simply listen to her breathing and take solace in her peacefulness, her barely discernible shape just visible under the covers in the night light's feeble glow.
This time the room appeared oddly disarrayed, missing its crucial element, its dolls, books, clothes, and posters merely support players on an otherwise empty stage. As with the house, Lester realized he'd never seen this room looking so utterly abandoned.
He continued to the end of the hall and the closed door barring his progress. It was covered with bumper stickers and pictures cut from snowboarding and car magazines, along with a No Trespassing sign to which the owner had added in red letters, "This means you."
This was David's room, where the door was always closed. Lester took the knob in his hand, twisted it, and pushed the door back on its hinges.
He hesitated at the threshold, as he might at the edge of a cliff, before stepping inside-a cop about to conduct an illegal search. A father about to start wrestling with an obsession.
* * *
Sammie Martens looked up from her desk as Gail Zigman entered the office. "Hey you looking for Joe? He's not here. Sorry."
Gail opened her mouth to respond when the phone rang. Sam held up an index finger in apology before answering it and launching into an arcane procedural discussion Gail paid no attention to. Instead, she wandered around the small office like a visitor to an office-life exhibition.
In fact, she was a semiregular here, to the point where Judy, the secretary in the tiny entryway they all pretended was a reception area, knew to let her through whenever she dropped by.
She enjoyed this office. Unlike most such places, with divider panels, cramped work nooks, a kitchenette, an interview room, this was all there was: four walls, four desks, the usual paperwork decorating the walls, and some standard office equipment. Bare bones. Joe's desk was no different in style from that of the newest member, Lester Spinney, who had come to VBI via the state police and AG's office, instead of the police department downstairs, as had the other three. It was, she thought, the way an investigative squad should be laid out, and probably a good many other offices as well-fewer places to hide or provide opportunities for envy and resentment.
Of course, she knew that none of this had been by choice. For the VBI, it was purely a matter of economics. Most cops saw this kind of arrangement as mostly a pain in the ass. Cops like their privacy, which is why, when they are forced to set things up in this fashion, they usually place their desks so they don't face one another.
Here each occupant sat in a corner, looking out, which struck Gail as interesting for its implied double message-they did face each other this way, true enough, but only from behind a barrier. It seemed a perfect encapsulation of the sometimes contrary emotions that made a good unit work.
Waiting for Sam to get off the phone, Gail reflected on how each desk spoke of its occupant: Sammie Martens, hers a frantically arranged landing zone for reports, directories, forms, faxes, notebooks, scattered pens and pencils, and a computer that looked threatened by it all; Lester Spinney, his desk supporting some official detritus, but mostly dominated by family photos, children's drawings, an NFL coffee mug, and a scrawny winged animal hanging from the ceiling with a sign around its neck labeling it the Spinneybird, a credit to its owner's cranelike physique; and Gail's own Joe Gunther, the one she knew best, his desk almost bare-one closed file folder, a worn pad used for taking notes while on the phone, a mug from her full of pens, a rarely used computer, and an assortment of odds and ends lined up like mystic icons. Among these latter were a smooth and weathered metal tapping spout used for maple-sugaring, a memory of his late father; a matchbox car from the fifties, the era from which his brother collected cars for real; and a uniform button from Joe's time in combat-a memento as simple in appearance as it was complex in meaning.
That accounted for three of the four desks. The last one was in the far corner, away from the door and the single row of windows, placed catty-corner so its owner could watch all aspects of the room, even though it made reaching the chair difficult. Its surface was littered with catalogs and magazines, some clearly unread paperwork. It was messy in appearance and looked neglected overall, as if its owner didn't visit often and, when he did, didn't attend to office work. That much was certainly true, since it belonged to Willy Kunkle, the one member of Gunther's team Gail could barely tolerate. To her, Kunkle represented all that was bad about law enforcement. She thought him an insensitive, prejudiced bully, quick to condemn, impossible to debate, and flat out rude to boot. A boor, in the fullest meaning of the word.