I resisted pointing out that while the Windham Foundation meeting he’d mentioned had concluded that policing could be improved using a regional approach-and not a single police agency-everyone in attendance had also agreed that none of them would live long enough to see any of their recommendations become reality.
“In any case, I’d like to make you a proposal,” he continued. “When all this comes to pass, I’d like you to consider a leadership position in this new organization.”
I deflected the offer, which I didn’t see as his to make in any case. “Have you come up with a name for it yet?”
He smiled broadly. “Tentatively, yes. The Agency for Criminal Justice has been kicked around, but that sounds a little flat to me. I prefer the Vermont Bureau of Investigation-VBI for short.”
“Very flashy. Sounds like an army dressed in business suits and barn boots.”
He lifted his snifter in a toast. “You can laugh now, but I’ll see this thing through. To your health.”
I returned the gesture without comment.
Gail was reading in bed when I got home. “Where’ve you been? I called the office an hour ago.”
“Having an out-of-body experience with Jim Reynolds. Strangest conversation I’ve had in a long time.”
She smiled sadly. “That’s saying something, given the ones we’ve been having.”
I sat beside her and squeezed her hand. “Those haven’t been strange. They’ve been painful.”
She took my hand and kissed it. “So what did you talk about?”
“I went there to give him the third degree. I ended up watching him drink cognac, treat his wife like a servant, and make references to Occam’s Razor.”
“Who?”
“Exactly what he was hoping I’d say, except I fooled him. William of Occam was a fourteenth-century theologian who came up with a theory that said, more or less, that too much bullshit makes for cluttered thinking. And encourages the employment of too many managers, who in turn do their best to keep things cluttered.”
She looked at me questioningly.
“Okay, so maybe he used different words and was mostly talking about a bloated clergy. In any case, it’s been handed down to us as that favorite of all management tools: Keep It Simple, Stupid-KISS. That’s what Reynolds claims his bill is-a massive pruning of redundancies.”
“I suppose he’s probably right.”
I got up and started getting ready for bed. “From what I heard this morning, Derby’s apparently trying to get you familiarized with William of Occam.”
Her eyes narrowed a fraction. “What did he say?”
“That you’re giving him hives fretting about Owen Tharp’s motivation.”
“What did you say?”
“Not a word. To borrow a phrase from the legal profession, it was a spontaneous utterance. I was telling him how the two homicide cases were bumping into each other in terms of crossover witnesses. He said McNeil was going to love exploiting that, and then he nailed me with how my girlfriend was giving him enough trouble as it was.”
She didn’t bite at the girlfriend crack, admitting instead, “I am.”
I paused in mid motion and looked at her. “A lot of trouble?”
She tilted her head slightly. “Could be. You and I have been over this ground before. I don’t have any doubts Owen Tharp killed that woman, but I’ve got some major ones that it was as simple as everyone’s hoping. McNeil and I have started trading pretrial information, and there’s not much I can see in Owen’s past that would make him go to Croteau’s house and kill her without cause.”
“He had cause. He thought she’d killed his girlfriend.”
“Exactly,” she said, sitting forward for emphasis. “And we now know from the girlfriend’s autopsy he was lied to. In his confession, he didn’t say something vague like, ‘The dope was poison.’ His exact words were, ‘Brenda put poison in her dope.’ That’s a specific accusation. The autopsy doesn’t bear it out, Owen wasn’t a witness to Lisa’s death, and nothing indicated at the time that she’d been murdered. So someone must’ve fed him that line, thereby directing him like a guided missile toward Brenda Croteau.”
I scratched my head. “I don’t know, Gail. There’s no evidence of that.”
“Are you kidding? Look at the kid. He’s everybody’s lapdog. They treat him like shit and he comes back for more-again and again and again. He’s the perfect weapon. He craves affection, isn’t too bright, and is prone to violent outbursts, and according to the lab results, he was higher than a kite on the night of the killing.”
“So why isn’t McNeil knocking your door down with a devil-made-him-do-it defense? He could plead diminished capacity, send Owen to a rubber room for a few years of gentle treatment, and have him back on the streets before he turns thirty.”
She thought a moment before answering. “Two reasons: one, he just might-it is early yet-and two, his client may be protecting the person who pushed his buttons. If Owen thinks that shooting his mouth off will land a father figure in jail, he’s going to do the noble thing. He’s a romantic, after all-he already thinks he avenged his sainted girlfriend, and she, for all we know, was a hooker who gave him a single roll in the hay, if that.”
By now I was sitting on a chair across the room, one sock in my hand, listening intently, my mind in a turmoil.
“I’m not arguing the point,” I said. “It could’ve happened that way. But what can you do about it? It’s not like you have the wrong man in jail. And Derby will have your hide if you open a can of worms this late in the game, especially when all you’re working from is a theory.”
She stared at the small hill her knees made under the blankets, reflecting on what I’d just said. Then she raised her eyes and gave me a half smile, filled with all the sadness and disappointment we’d been trying to deal with these last few days.
“I guess I need help.”
20
I rose early the next morning, out of long-standing habit, got ready for the day in a bathroom down the hall so I wouldn’t disturb Gail, and went downstairs to fix a cup of coffee and some toast.
It was still as dark as the middle of the night, making the house more intimate than I ever found it during the day. Somehow, with most of the lights off and all the artwork and elegant furniture obscured, I felt more at ease with my surroundings. Less like a visitor.
I washed my cup in the sink, put on my overcoat, grabbed the bag where I kept my gun, radio, paperwork, and various odds and ends, and headed outside.
The freezing air grabbed my nostrils like a pair of pliers, making me blink and catch my breath. It was short-lived, as always, and even comforting in an odd way, instilling in many of us who chose to live here a sense that by merely staying alive this time of year, we weren’t doing too badly.
I crossed the driveway to the garage, triggering the usual battery of motion-detector spotlights, which both ruined the mood and replaced the starlight with a confusing tangle of harsh glare and deep shadow. Inside the garage, I pulled my keys from my pocket-and suddenly froze.
Outside the garage, I heard the faint squeak of frozen snow under a carefully placed foot.
I dropped down, circled the car, and waited, crouching behind its passenger-side wheel well, breathing through my mouth, my chin tucked down so no vapor cloud would rise above my barricade and give me away.
I heard someone approach, pause, then turn slightly. After a long silence, a voice said tentatively, “Joe?”
I rose from my hiding place and found Stanley Katz standing awkwardly, looking slightly frightened.
“For Christ’s sake, Stan. You ought to know better.”
He laughed nervously. “Holy shit. I didn’t know where you went. It was weird.”
“Keep your voice down. Gail’s still asleep. What’re you doing here?”
“I wanted to talk to you about Reynolds. You read yesterday’s paper?”