Unfortunately, I didn’t get to wait that long. I hadn’t placed one foot into the hallway before I was confronted by a short, square state trooper I knew to be big in their labor union-a strong organization within the state’s most powerful police force and, as such, a two-headed entity that constantly caught heat from almost every other agency in Vermont. The Vermont state police endured the same barbs suffered by all dominant organizations. Some were deserved, others generated from pure envy, but the value of either was usually lost in prejudicial rhetoric. It no longer mattered who was right anymore, or even that the VSP had recently been making great strides in an effort to be more inclusive. The division had been drawn long ago, and although both the VSP and the rest of us talked constantly about being one big happy family, both also took pride in celebrating one side of that line at the expense of the other. It was but one of the obstacles Reynolds was confronting, and as the short state trooper fell into step beside me, it was the one I was going to have to deal with. “Jesus, Joe. You trashed us pretty good in there,” he said in a low voice.
“If I trashed anyone, it was the whole kit-and-caboodle. You guys run a better ship than most.”
“Oh, come on. All those comments about how we work. You made us look like the Pentagon or something, and you’re not even one of us.”
I stopped and looked at him. “I’m a cop just like you are. The whole point of this exercise is to try to make that the only relevant distinction-not the uniform, not the town, not the budget or the turf battles. I wasn’t picking on the VSP-I’m not even sure I mentioned your name. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to deny how much waste and redundancy there is across the board.”
He looked like I’d slapped him for paying me a compliment. “What about the efforts we been making to open communications? The computer link-ups, the advisory boards, user groups, task forces, the exchange programs, and all the rest?”
“I told them about that. I even stressed what a positive development it was.”
“You made it sound like it wasn’t working.”
“It’s not-not so long as we treat each other like competing rivals.”
His eyes widened. “Jesus Christ. It’s positive but it’s not working? No wonder they had you in there. You sound like one of them.”
I half opened my mouth to answer and then gave it up, saying only, “I gotta go.”
It had been a jarring conclusion to a confusing experience, and it left me resenting Tony Brandt for sending me here, and respecting Jim Reynolds for having orchestrated the outcome he’d sought-a conflict of loyalties that galled me instinctively, and one I tried sorting out all the way home.
14
Gail was hunkered down in her upstairs armchair like a mole in a burrow, surrounded by pillows and paperwork. “I’m starting to wonder what you look like in daylight,” I told her.
“I’m starting to wonder what daylight looks like. How was Montpelier?”
I tried making light of the bitter aftertaste still lingering after hours in the car. “The usual circus. It was interesting seeing Reynolds at work. Very crafty.”
“You made it on the news tonight.”
I sat on the floor with my back against the wall. “Great. A colleague from the state police cornered me right after and accused me of fratricide.”
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t worry. It was just background footage to the reporter’s voice-over. They didn’t even use your name.”
I took off my shoes and wriggled my toes into the thick carpeting, eager to change subjects. “Thank God for small favors. How’s it going with the Owen case?”
She made a face. “Could be better. Derby and I are starting to wrangle. He wants me to go hell for leather-Felony Murder Rule, double homicide, maximum sentence.”
“And you don’t?” I asked, remembering how Brenda’s head had barely been attached to her body.
“I’m not against it, necessarily. I just think we sometimes charge people like you’d hunt deer with a machine gun. It’s grandstanding and it’s sloppy. We don’t know yet what really went on in that house, and what led up to it. It’s at sentencing that the penalties should be meted out, once all the cards have been put on the table. That’s what separates Vermont from the feds-we have more latitude.”
I slid down to rest on my elbows. “Derby must love you, especially during an election year. I didn’t think it was the prosecutor’s job to worry about motive.”
She gave me a sour look. “Don’t you start, too. Any idiot knows the jury’ll want to hear a motive, whether it’s our quote-unquote job or not. If we don’t pay attention to that, McNeil will eat us for lunch. Besides, intent is part of our burden of proof, so whether we like it or not, we’re going to have to step onto that thin ice.”
“He said he went there to kill her. He’d been waiting for several years to find out who spiked his girlfriend’s dope with poison.”
“He didn’t bring a weapon, he killed her where she stood, and he drove his aunt’s truck there to do it. Hardly a plan born of deep thought.”
I was silent for a moment, thinking of how tense the situation must have become at her office. I felt a certain sympathy for her boss. Charging a perpetrator with everything and then compromising with a lesser sentence after trial-or better still, using those charges to cut a pretrial deal-was standard practice. I wondered if Gail’s social welfare past wasn’t getting in her way.
But she was still talking. “My God, Joe, if I’m asking these kinds of questions-first time on a murder trial-don’t you think McNeil’s been over the same ground thirty times by now? Derby’s so desperate to get something locked in by November, he’s not thinking straight. Besides, I doubt that confession will make it to trial. I already told you that. You ever read it?”
“Sure.”
“Then you saw where he said he first went there to get her to come clean, and only after a little prodding from Kunkle said he wanted to kill her for what she’d done. If McNeil doesn’t get it thrown out, it’ll only be so he can shove it up our noses in front of the jury and make it look like coercion.
“Plus,” she added, “that bloody knee-print never panned out. The stained clothes we got from Owen’s aunt didn’t include pants, and now she’s saying he never wore jeans anyhow.”
“That’s pretty convenient,” I said. “Who says she’s telling the truth? The pants could’ve been jeans, and they might’ve vanished precisely because they were soaked in blood. It was Brenda’s DNA on what little the aunt did hand over, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Gail admitted without enthusiasm and then added more hopefully, “but not much. A bit on his jacket and a few drops on one shoe.”
“Boy,” I said softly after a long pause, “doesn’t sound like you and Derby are even working the same case. Could Owen get off?”
“Of course he could,” she answered angrily. “Just ask anyone who thinks O.J. Simpson was guilty. The point is, you enter a case like this with something other than blood in your eye. Jack basically wants to throw a rope over some tree branch and ride off into the sunset to general applause. It ain’t going to work that way unless he wakes up.”
I got to my feet, shoes in hand, and kissed her again-this was the second debate of the day I didn’t want to touch. “Sorry you’re having a tough time. He’ll probably settle down once McNeil begins showing what he’s up to. You haven’t even seen his witness list yet, have you?”
“No,” she admitted glumly. “But when we do, your squad better expect a phone call. I know in my gut we’re going to be digging into Owen’s past deeper than they will at the Pearly Gates.” She suddenly reached up and grabbed my wrist. “Speaking of which, could you do me a favor? Call Hillstrom’s office and find out if it actually was poison that killed Owen’s girlfriend-Lisa Wooten.”