Amid this funereal stillness, the sudden chirping of the cell phone made us both jump.
Since Ron was driving, I picked it up.
“Joe?” Sammie said. “You there?”
I spoke louder than I had answering. “Yeah. What’s up?”
“All hell’s broken loose. The Reformer’s coming out this morning with an article saying we’re targeting Reynolds for the Resnick killing. We just got an early edition. Derby’s madder’n hell and wants to meet with you and Brandt as soon as you hit the parking lot.”
“Is Resnick identified by name?”
“Oh, yeah. And he’s been pegged to the haz mat truck. Not only that, but your trip to Maine is mentioned, too.”
“Christ,” I muttered, and told Sammie, “We’re about an hour out.”
I hung up and updated Ron.
He thought for a minute before saying, “Remember what Kevin Daly said about explaining the case to someone, quote-unquote, over your way? I bet that was Katz or one of his people following my footsteps. As far as I know, I’m the only one Daly talked to from the PD.”
“Great,” I said, half to myself. “Which means we’ve sprung a leak somewhere.”
19
Sammie Martens came out to greet us in the parking lot before Ron had even rolled to a complete stop. “You want to take a post-trip pee, you better use the hallway bathroom, ’cause Derby’s already in the chief’s office waiting. You are not to visit your office first, you are not to take off your coat, you are not to pass Go.”
“That good, huh?”
“Looks like it. Thought you’d like to see this first.” She handed me a copy of the paper, which I shoved into my pocket unread.
“Also,” she added, giving me a small folded piece of notepaper, “Willy gave me this for you. Said it might come in handy.”
I followed her to the department’s side entrance, down the short hallway into the central area between dispatch and the chief’s office, and entered the latter without bothering to knock.
Jack Derby rose from his chair. Brandt, behind his desk, stayed put.
“I hear we have problems,” I said, removing my coat and hanging it by the door.
“That’s putting it mildly,” Derby agreed, so tense his teeth almost clenched. “Do you have any idea how Katz got this story?”
“I haven’t had a chance to read it yet,” I answered blandly, sitting down, and by example forcing him to do the same.
“Well, I have, and it sounds like he was briefed better than I was.”
Tony Brandt added in an almost lazy voice, which I imagined only added to Derby’s irritation, “I told Jack we’d do an internal-see if we can plug the leak.”
Derby scratched his forehead. “I have one felony murder case already under way and another in the pipeline, assuming you find the killer. I do not need to be watching my back while I’m juggling these two, wondering who the hell’s going to be sticking it to me next. I do not want guilty people going free because some cop can’t resist seeing his anonymous words in print.”
It was a little pompous and more than slightly disingenuous. Both Brandt and I knew perfectly well that any potential future trials were far less imperiled by such leaks than were Derby’s hopes for reelection. His passion, as a result, was somewhat disappointing. I’d voted for him when he’d first run for State’s Attorney, largely because I’d liked his pledge to take politics out of his office. I hadn’t actually believed it, of course-I’ve been around too long for that-but after years of working with the imperious James Dunn, I had hoped for something better in his successor. It was beginning to look as if I’d only ended up with something different.
“What’s Jim Reynolds’s take on it?” I asked innocently, simultaneously unfolding Willy’s note and glancing at its contents.
Derby stared at me as if I’d just fallen on my head. “What the hell do you think it is? He’s fit to be tied.”
He suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, aware of what I’d lured him into, and quickly added, “At least I imagine he is. I would be, in his place.”
He got up again and began pacing. “What the hell is it with Reynolds, anyway? Do you actually have anything on him?”
Brandt looked at me to respond. “We have growing concerns,” I said. “His name keeps coming up, like it just did in Portland. Right now, the use of a car like his at the murder scene looks like a clumsy frame, but someone did break into his office, he did know Resnick from that case in Maine, which also involved illegal haz mat, and according to this”-I waved Willy’s note in the air-“while he told me he was at his apartment in Montpelier the night Resnick was killed, his nosy neighbor just told Kunkle that his car wasn’t in its parking place till just before dawn.”
Derby ran both hands through his hair. “Meaning what, for God’s sake? That he snuck down here, stole a car that looked like his, fitted it with bogus plates to match his own, and then knocked off a guy in the one section of town that probably has more windows overlooking it than your average New York tenement?”
Neither Brandt nor I said a word.
Derby stopped pacing. “All right, all right. Let’s move on. From the reports I’ve read so far, it looks like both the Resnick and Croteau killings are beginning to rub shoulders. What’s going on there?”
“So far, it just looks typical of a small town with a small underworld, where everybody steps on everybody else’s toes. Billy Conyer, for example, who we think was one of the three who killed Resnick, was a friend of Brenda Croteau’s. We also have witnesses in one case who feature as acquaintances in the other.”
Derby looked irritated. “Great. McNeil’s going to have a field day with that.” He suddenly stared at me. “Your girlfriend’s already giving me enough grief as it is about Tharp’s motivation.”
I felt my face flush and was about to respond when he cut me off. “Save it, Joe. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m getting too worked up here. What’s important is that we try to keep things as uncontaminated as possible. I don’t want the Tharp case derailed because of some extraneous poking around by you into Resnick or-God forbid-Jim Reynolds. Remember that, okay? Just keep things delineated. And give your people the same message, especially Kunkle. If I hear that someone on either my witness list or McNeil’s has been harassed by him, I’ll cut him off at the knees.”
“We’ll conduct the investigation as we see fit,” I said, finally allowing my anger to show. “It’s not in your purview to tell us who we can and cannot interview.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Brandt smiling slightly.
Derby bent toward me, like a teacher addressing an errant student. “I’d be careful there. My ‘purview,’ as you call it, cuts pretty God-damn wide.” He straightened suddenly, as if stung, and ran his hand down across his face. “That’s not what I said, anyhow. I said ‘harass,’ and I referred to extraneous poking around. I did not tell you how to do your job. I know you think I’m being a jerk here-I can see it in your face. I’m young, I’ve been a prosecutor for all of three years, and I’m up for reelection soon. That makes me the asshole. Fine. But the buck stops with me-I’m the guy who’s supposed to put Tharp in jail. If that doesn’t happen because of some mistake from this department, it’s still going to be my butt in the sling. That’s why I want things done right.”
I weighed my options, trying to temper my anger by recognizing that while his style was lousy, his points had some merit. But I finally settled for a simple, “Can I go now?”
He seemed as startled by my lack of reaction as if I’d really let him have it, making his suddenly conciliatory tone all the more awkward. “Of course. I’m sorry I went overboard. I shouldn’t blow off steam like that-we’re a team, after all. We just have a lot riding on this.”