I paused to let the significance of that sink in.
“What do you want?” she repeated, her voice more plaintive than defiant.
“We’d like you to tell us about your roommate.”
She went pale. “Walter?”
“Yeah. We’re a little suspicious he’s been up to things he shouldn’t be. What do you know about him?”
“I know he’s done stuff.”
“What kinds of stuff?”
She apparently changed her mind. “Whatever. We don’t talk about it. It’s just part of life in the streets.”
The phrase was so melodramatic, it sounded like she’d read it from a cue card.
Sheila said softly, “Alice, I know your folks. This life was your choice. Nobody drove you to it.”
Alice’s lower lip went out like a child’s, and she stared at her feet.
“I think you know exactly what kind of man you’re living with,” I said. “That’s part of the appeal, isn’t it?”
“He’s a good guy,” she murmured.
“He’s a powerful one, and a dangerous one. He ever done things to scare you?”
Her silence spoke for her.
I extracted a folded piece of paper from my inner pocket and held it up to her. “This is a warrant to search this apartment, Alice, for any and all materials pertaining to the sale or possession of illegal drugs. What’re we going to find?”
She tossed her head toward Sammie. “She set me up. It was entrapment.”
I pulled several cassette tapes from another pocket. “These’ll prove otherwise. You know how long we’ve been watching you?”
She stared at me, her mouth partly open.
“That’s right. For hours on end, day after day.” I pointed over her shoulder. “From right over there, across the street. And from other places, too. We have tapes, photos, video, the testimony of other undercover officers. We’ve been living your life with you for weeks, Alice. Think back over some of the things you’ve been doing.”
I glanced up at Sheila and Sam. “Undo her cuffs and go ahead.”
They both set to work searching the small room, moving quietly and efficiently. We’d timed all this to allow for plenty of leeway before Walter was due back. Alice watched them anxiously, like a kid whose secret horde is about to be uncovered.
“They’re going to find something, aren’t they?” I asked her.
“I got nothing to hide.”
Sheila extracted her latex-gloved hand from a bureau drawer. A small baggie of crushed brown leaves dangled from her fingers.
“You may be right,” I said.
I pulled one last item from my pocket, a manila envelope filled with five-by-seven photographs. I laid one on her lap.
“You know the drinking age in Vermont?”
She nodded.
I turned the picture around slightly, so we could both see it. “Pretty good shot. You can even make out the label on the bottle.”
From across the room, standing in the open closet, Sammie smiled, “Joe.”
She was holding a crack pipe.
I shook my head. “It’s not looking good, Alice. You ever been to jail before? No. That’s right. I forgot. Tough place. Overcrowded, too. Not enough room for young women to be housed apart from one another.”
Alice began to fidget.
I put a second picture on her lap, of her and Sammie talking, hunched together like conspirators. “Show-and-tell,” I said. “To go with the tapes.”
Alice brushed it off her knee onto the floor with a spastic gesture. “I can’t tell you anything. I don’t know what Walter does. He’s real private.”
“Private, maybe. But you live with him. You notice things. Remember the night Brenda Croteau was murdered?”
She sat farther back on the bed, lifting her knees so she could slide all the way up against the headboard. I moved to her spot at the foot, still crowding her. “No.”
“You do, don’t you? What happened that night?”
“Nothing.”
I took a wild guess. “Walter was late coming home from work.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Then why’re you scared half to death? It was pretty bad, wasn’t it? And he told you to keep your mouth shut.”
“Nothing happened that night.”
“You think I’m making this up?” I asked, hoping she wouldn’t answer correctly.
“I’m not telling you anything. I don’t care what happens to me.”
“Because he’d beat you up? Or worse? It may be a little late for that.” I placed a third picture before her. “He’s pretty jealous, isn’t he?”
She glanced at it and swayed slightly. “Oh, shit. You can’t do this.”
It was a photograph of her kissing another man.
“That’s not what it looks like. He said he’d rape me if I didn’t. I-”
I cut her off. “Walter’s not going to believe that. Alice, pay attention. Sheila’s told us about Burlington. We can fix things up between you and your folks-get you straight again, get you back in school. This is not a dead end. You can get out. You just have to talk to us.”
My pitch was more desperate than she knew. I had no intention of sharing what I knew with Walter. And, glancing over my shoulder, I could tell Sam and Sheila hadn’t found anything more than what they’d already shown me-which meant the apartment contained nothing so incriminating against Walter Freund that we could move decisively against him.
Fortunately, Alice was beyond knowing such things, much less using them to her advantage.
“I got something,” she blurted, making me release an inner sigh of relief. “A bag. He had it with him that night. He did come in late. He was real worked up. He treated me rough, tore my clothes, treated me like a whore. I followed him when he left with the bag, and I saw him throw it away in one of the dumpsters. I got it out right after and hid it.”
“Why?” I asked. The others were deathly silent, frozen in place.
“He pissed me off. He said stuff-it really hurt. All the shit I do for him.”
“Did you look in the bag?”
“No. I was too scared. And then later, he said he was sorry and everything was cool, and I sort of forgot about it.”
“Where’s the bag now?”
“I got a hiding place in the basement.”
“Will you show us?”
She was so nervous by now, she couldn’t keep still. “I don’t know. He can get real mean. I’m scared.”
“I know you are, Alice, but it doesn’t matter what’s in the bag-you’re out of here now. We’ll put you somewhere safe, get you back with your folks. You can leave this behind you-tonight.”
“Oh, God. I don’t know.”
I leaned for emphasis. “Alice, listen to me. You stay here, word of this will get out. Not from us, but someone’ll talk. That’s the way things work. You know that, right? Word gets around sooner or later. Somebody sees something, or somebody, and puts two and two together. You want to run that risk? You want us to find you like we did Brenda Croteau, in a pool of blood with your head half cut off?”
She covered her ears and began rocking back and forth.
I reached out and stopped her. Pulled her hands down. “Alice, show us the bag and let’s get the hell out of here.”
Without comment, she swung her legs off the bed and headed for the door. Sammie quickly updated Willy by radio, and we all three silently followed our skinny guide down the dark, creaking stairs, straining to hear anyone approaching, fearful we’d be interrupted with the prize almost within grasp. Alice led us to an earthen-floored basement, cold and damp and filled with shadows. We used flashlights rather than hit the lights, and Alice took us to a distant corner, behind a monstrous oil tank squatting on short metal legs.
Brushing aside cobwebs, crawling on our hands and knees, just she and I squeezed behind the tank and came to a stack of moldy bricks, which she began unpiling in a frenzy, sending up a clatter that rebounded off the cold walls.
“Slow down, slow down,” I urged her. “It’s okay now.”
She finally reached into the middle of the bricks and pulled free a dirt-smeared black gym bag, which she thrust into my hands as if it were on fire. “There. Can we go now? Please?”