“Very graciously put, Stanley,” I said with a laugh. “I’ll be sure to pass your compliments along to the chief.”
In fact, there was no big flurry surrounding Bancroft’s departure. Brandt and Derby both agreed with Katz that discretion was probably best suited to everyone this time, and ended the whole episode with barely a murmur.
As satisfying as it was to have this problem put to rest, however, I was the first to acknowledge that its importance had been diminished by recent events. Reynolds was on a roll, the rumors that had threatened him early on all but forgotten-a fate I feared our case might suffer unless something broke soon from the underbrush.
Like Willy walking into my office, looking fresh from a meal of proverbial canary.
It had been some time since I’d seen him so well disposed, for despite his efforts-or because he’d had to be uncharacteristically light handed-he’d been having a tough time getting the cooperation he was used to. Also, he hadn’t been alone. With the SA’s office, Reggie McNeil, and the media all out there digging, not to mention half the police department, Willy’s fondness for the shadows had been thoroughly put to the test.
None of which seemed to be bothering him now. He closed my office door, leaned up against it, and said, “I think I got a hot one. You want to join me?”
“We going somewhere?”
“I am. I think I found Lisa Wooten’s supplier, but he’s skipped town. He beat feet for the hills after the bodies started piling up, and I want to know why.”
“What’s his name?”
“Eric Meade. Lives out in the boonies on the Auger Hole Road, near the Marlboro end. I would’ve done him on my own, ’cept I knew you’d get pissed, not to mention he has a fondness for firearms.” He smiled broadly at the last line.
I raised my eyebrows. “Think we ought to bring in more people?”
“Not if we want to keep this private. Plus, once he knows all we want is a conversation, he shouldn’t be too hard to handle.”
“Assuming he hasn’t already shot one of us.”
Willy waved that off. “No sweat. He’s an ex-Marine, but I hear he’s pretty peaceful. Got kicked out of the Corps because he lied on his application, not that he’d admit it. Anyway, I’ve got something I think I can use as leverage. I’ve dug up a candidate for your number one rat in all this.”
It was clear this invitation was a one-time offer. The visit to Eric Meade would take place with or without me.
“Okay,” I told him. “Have a seat and tell me who’s the rat.”
His eyes were shining with pleasure. “Walter Freund-from what I’ve been hearing, he makes Jamie Good look like he deserves his last name.”
21
The Auger Hole Road was fairly substantial by Vermont back roads standards. A perpendicular link running from Route 9, between Brattleboro and Bennington, to the Dover Road farther north, it wasn’t something that tourists readily used, but it was well-known and well traveled by many locals.
That notwithstanding, it remained a twisting, narrow, tree-crowded gravel scratch on the map. And at night, dark and lonely.
At both ends, it actually had some pretty impressive homes-large old farmhouses, complete with outbuildings and open fields. Toward the middle, however, far from the conveniences of any community or major thoroughfare, the population thinned out and didn’t advertise much excess income. Land-locked trailers and weary shacks were the norm, often placed back from the road, and barely visible in the best of light.
Which was hardly the condition now.
Willy drove silently, his eyes intent on the ice-smooth swath of road that wavered in our headlights. On either side of us, dirty snowbanks leaned against a thick palisade of trees, which flashed by like bars on a cage, thick and ominous. The night was so absolute as to feed the imagination, and the woods seemed like they were teeming with life, watching us go by.
I craned my neck over the dashboard to look up at the faint thin ribbon of sky directly overhead.
“Full moon,” Willy said quietly. “Not that it matters out here.”
“He live alone?” I asked.
“Supposedly. But you know how that can change.”
The car slowed, and Willy began studying the side of the road. “I think we’re close.” He killed the headlights, plunging us first into total darkness and then, as our eyes readjusted, into a thin penumbra between half-sight and blindness. The car kept rolling, the absence of light making the sound of its wheels on the frozen dirt seem much louder.
“If Meade’s as hinky as I think he is,” Willy explained, “he’s not going to like seeing any slow-moving cars.”
I mentally reviewed the briefing Willy had given me in my office. Born to an addict who’d killed herself when he was five, Eric Meade had grown up as the poster boy for every rehab organization known to the state, from Alcoholics Anonymous to the Department of Corrections. According to Willy’s sources, he had finally learned to cope by simply avoiding society, venturing into its treacherous currents only when strictly necessary.
Willy pulled as close to the bank as he could and killed the engine. “Okay. Foot patrol time.”
He reached into the back seat, retrieved a small canvas case, and handed me an electronic instrument about the size and weight of an instant camera. “The on switch is on the bottom.”
I found the small button he was referring to and slid it forward. A dim green glow emanated from one end of the device.
“Night-vision monocular,” he explained. “Bought ’em from a catalog two years ago for a couple of hundred bucks each. I got sick of waiting for the department to buy enough units to pass around-plus, I just like having my own.”
We exited the car, with me still fooling with the scope, holding it up to my eye and admiring how well it revealed everything around us, although in a universally sickly green wash. “You use these much?” I asked in a whisper.
“Now and then. I bought that one for Sammie. Better than a date any time.”
I lowered it and glanced to where he was bent over, tightening a shoelace. I imagined him and Sam prowling the streets late at night, peering into other people’s business just to keep tabs. I had no idea if that bore any semblance to the truth, but I could suddenly understand what Sammie saw in Willy and how Willy must be missing her since she’d hooked up with Andy Padgett.
He straightened and began walking down the road ahead, as quietly as the shadows around us, his scope turned off by his side, navigating by the tepid moonlight. He was military-trained and combat-tested, experienced in traveling behind enemy lines for days on end. This kind of world-dark, still, and filled with unseen menace-was as comfortable to him as a walk in the park. It was an adaptation that went a long way in explaining his character.
I fell into step behind him.
We walked like that for several hundred yards, until we came to a barely discernible break in the snowbank, more like a deer path than a driveway. Here Willy paused and waited for me to catch up. I could hear the creaking of the frozen tree trunks and the rattling of bare branches in the light breeze high overhead.
“This is it,” Willy whispered, his voice as gentle as a sigh. “Runs about two hundred yards up to a trailer. Rumor has it he’s rigged trip wires, so keep your eyes glued to where I put my feet. He knows what he’s doing, remember.”
“What’re the wires attached to?” I asked, my curiosity unpleasantly piqued.
Willy shrugged. “You want to find out?”
He led the way down the middle of the path, night scope to his eye, moving like a careful cat, his body above the waist as smooth as a boat slipping through quiet water.
Once again, I followed, seriously rethinking all the decisions that had brought me here.
Willy stopped abruptly about one hundred feet along and fell gracefully to one knee. Then he looked over his shoulder and gestured to me with his one hand, still holding the scope. I came up next to him.