Everyone nodded. Willy, just as predictably, smiled enigmatically.
“I know,” I continued, “that Walter Freund’s name is familiar to most of you. He’s someone we’d all like to see put away for good. That’s another thing we have to watch out for. Our handing Owen Tharp over to the SA prematurely’s going to cost us with the press and some of the politicians. The race for the primaries will begin after Town Meeting Day. And even though things won’t get hot till May, after the Legislature calls it quits for the year candidates are going to be chasing every issue they can, especially our old pal James Dunn. So, one last request: Keep your mouths shut. Any reporter, any civilian you don’t know, asks you any question at all, tell them ‘no comment,’ and let me know who they are. You all know what happened to Cary Bancroft. Let’s not give him any company on the unemployment line.”
The rest of the meeting was devoted to dividing the workload and apportioning responsibilities and schedules. I let Sammie and Ron run most of it, given their dual leadership roles, except for wrapping things up with a few words of generic encouragement.
As I was retreating to my office, however, I was approached by patrolwoman Sheila Kelly, an expectant expression on her face.
“What’s up?” I asked her.
She kept her voice low. “I might have something that could be helpful-an old snitch I used to have.”
I escorted her to my office and closed the door behind us. “Have a seat,” I said. “Fill me in.”
She got straight to the point. “She used to do me favors now and then when I was with the Burlington PD. About six months ago, I heard she’d moved down here. I looked her up, but she didn’t want anything to do with me-said her new boyfriend would string her up if he ever found out she’d been a snitch. It didn’t mean much to me at the time, but the boyfriend is Walter Freund.”
23
Her name was Alice Duprée. She was all of twenty-blond, emaciated, stoop-shouldered, her eyes bruised by too little sleep and poor nutrition. She had a fondness for leather clothes, body piercing, odd-colored nail polish, booze, and dope. She was also quiet, subservient, and conditioned for abuse.
Walter Freund’s kind of woman.
For two weeks, we put her under surveillance, eight hours of every day, when she wasn’t in Walter’s company. The schedule was chosen not just for budgetary reasons-since the evidence linking Freund to Brenda’s death was too slim to justify much overtime-but also because we were worried Walter might tumble to us faster than his more naive companion.
Walter, after all, was looking at time in a place like Leavenworth if he was ever caught dirty again. It made him a terribly cautious man. Watching him around the clock was deemed a waste of time.
Not so Alice Duprée. She was needy, high-strung, easily bored, and alcohol-dependent. And Walter’s job on the four-to-midnight shift at a paper plant outside of town left her alone when many of those characteristics played in our favor. During those two weeks, as the evenings stretched into night-and her need to keep awake for her man hinged on keeping herself busy-we caught her on film drinking, smoking dope, getting friendly with other men, and agreeing on tape to sell crack to Sam’s undercover impersonation of a newfound friend.
It was a somewhat otherworldly period of time for me, split between studying the self-indulgent roamings of an aimless girl, supervising the increasingly frustrating investigation into Billy Conyer’s last days, and tracking in the press how the Reynolds Bill was faring in town meetings across the state. Especially since it was all in addition to coming home every night to a few gingerly handled hours with a woman under pressure from her boss, who was increasingly impatient with me to produce results.
By the time we decided we had enough on Alice Duprée to suit us, I was more than a little anxious she would provide us the break we were craving.
The night the crack deal was to go down with Sam, we had one officer tail Walter to work-to make sure he stayed there-while Sheila, Willy, and I huddled in the freezing, empty second-floor office of a warehouse, watching Freund’s dilapidated apartment building from across the street.
At the appointed time, dressed in threadbare punk regalia, Sammie appeared below, casually climbed the steps onto the building’s rotting porch, and disappeared inside. Over our headphones, we heard her high-heeled boots clumping upstairs and watched through the binoculars as her expectant hostess rose in response to her knock on the door and let her in.
The deal was concluded so quickly and with such ease it was almost anticlimactic. Alice’s friendship with Sammie had been built on a specific offer. Once that had been dealt with, Sammie ceased to be relevant. Alice had eyes only for her newly won wad of cash.
Until Sam slipped a badge under her nose.
At that point, things did pick up a little, as Sheila had warned us they might. Over my headphones, I heard Alice scream, and saw her leap to her feet and strike out, only to be quickly reduced to a crooked pile on the floor, with Sammie’s knee in the small of her back. At Sam’s unruffled suggestion that we come on over, Sheila and I did just that, leaving Willy to cover.
We’d wanted no fanfare, had dressed down for the occasion, and so crossed the street at a leisurely pace, our arms interlinked as if heading to bed after a long day at the bar. We made it to Freund’s apartment without meeting another soul.
That, of course, had been the main point of this exercise. Alice Duprée wasn’t worth clogging up the system-not that we’d tell her that-but the digs she called home were something else. We were perfectly willing to lose our case against her in exchange for a little conversation and the chance to legally search Walter’s room.
When we arrived, Sammie had perched Alice on the edge of the bed with her hands cuffed behind her and was talking to her, inches from her face, in a tone too low for us to hear from the door. From Alice’s expression, however, I wondered once more about all the time Sammie had spent with Willy over the years.
Sammie straightened as I closed the door behind us, and moved to Alice’s side.
She recognized Sheila and managed to say, “You bitch,” before Sammie clamped a hand on her shoulder and quieted her down.
I took a chair from near a scarred bureau, placed it before Alice, and sat in it. Sheila positioned herself on Alice’s other side, close enough so that she and Sammie looked like an honor guard.
Alice’s eyes widened as the space around her was completely boxed in. “What do you want?”
“Has Detective Martens read you your rights?” I asked, knowing full well she hadn’t.
She hesitated before answering, probably looking for the trap. “No.”
“Good. That leaves us some options, ’cause if she had, that would mean you were under arrest, and we’d have to cart you off to jail, take your fingerprints and mug shots, have you spend the night in our basement, and arraign you in front of the judge tomorrow morning. In short, saddle you with a criminal record that would haunt you the rest of your life.”
“I don’t give a shit about a record. All my friends have records and it don’t hurt them any.”
I smiled at her. “I doubt they’d agree. But-miracle of miracles-you’ve still got a clean slate. A couple of goes at Diversion for retail theft, a misdemeanor or two over your drinking, a dropped charge for malicious mischief. You’re right on the edge, but so far you’ve hung in there. Until now, of course.”