“And you saw nothing of that?”
His eyes grew wide. “I didn’t lie there. And I swear I’m not lying now. That’s everything I know.”
“How about cooking up your cover story?”
He flushed again. “I’m sorry. That’s right. Frankie did see something through the window. Not the murder-just something he said was weird. And later, when the cops-I mean the police-were going door-to-door, we heard them coming. That’s when Frankie figured what he’d seen must’ve been pretty bad. So we came up with the all-night poker story. We didn’t know anything-Frankie told you the truth there. We didn’t see fessing up to having had a hooker would make any difference. It would just cause trouble.”
“You must’ve read about her in the paper when she was killed,” I said, not bothering to hide my contempt.
“We were scared shitless. We talked on the phone about it-about going to the police and telling them what we knew. But what did we know? I caught hell from Sherry as it was when I got home. This could’ve ended my marriage.” He paused and drew a long face. “Might still end it.”
I rose to my feet, finally tiring of his self-involvement. “Not unless you tell her, Jim. I’m cutting you loose. I will tell you one thing, though-it’s for her sake and the kids that I won’t blow the whistle. Your covering your own sorry butt cuts so close to interfering with a police investigation it barely shows daylight, and if I ever hear of you stepping out of line again-in any way, shape, or form-I’m going to make it my business that everyone finds out about this little conversation. Clear?”
He stood shakily, his shoulders stooped, and nodded miserably, which only made me want to kick him in the ass. “Yes, sir.”
“Get the hell out of here.”
He preceded me out of the door and disappeared. I stayed behind to slide his chair back under the table and turn off the light, and when I pulled the door shut behind me, I saw Sammie standing in the darkened viewing room, leaning against the wall, her face as still as stone.
“You been there long?”
“Long enough.”
I scratched the back of my neck. “What’re you going to do?”
“What do you think?”
I saw her point. Maintaining a love affair with a man who had kept vital evidence from the police, not to mention flat-out lied to her, would have been a little much to expect. I couldn’t have done it in her place.
“You want the rest of the day off?”
“I don’t know.”
I stepped into the small room. “Get it over with now, Sam. Go see him, clear the air, and then come over to my place later. We’ll get a pizza or something, have a few beers, and talk about what shits men can be. Gail’ll pitch in-I promise.”
She tried to smile. “Thanks, Joe. I’ll see how it goes.”
I watched her walk into the squad room, grab her coat, and leave, moving like an exhausted, shell-shocked soldier. She was possibly the best cop I’d ever worked with-committed, passionate, driven to outperform everyone around her. It almost broke my heart to see her served this way-the one time she’d taken a chance on a small bit of happiness.
26
Gail, of course, had been right. Mark Mullen, Vermont’s speaker of the House, following his supportive and glowing speech about law and order and the Reynolds Bill, immediately set about taking the latter apart, piece by piece.
He did this in time-honored fashion, spreading the responsibility far and wide among his colleagues, vowing he was improving the Senate’s work by giving it the thorough and careful review it deserved.
At least his method was original. He pushed a resolution through the House creating a special committee-traditionally an advisory group-with full authorization to act in place of all the standing committees that would normally consider such a bill. Thus, instead of trying to manipulate several dozen people sitting on Appropriations, Judiciary, Government Ops, and the rest, Mullen simply handpicked a few representatives from each-and from both parties-and appointed them to the study committee. Their job was to analyze the bill, listen to testimony supporting and decrying it, and eventually report to the House membership for a full vote.
On the surface, it was both practical and efficient. It was also a good way for Mullen to maintain near-total control.
Once again, I was asked to Montpelier to act as an expert witness, which I only hoped I could do with total impartiality. As the months had slipped by, the law enforcement “super agency” bill had been sharply debated across the state, and my earlier desire to keep an open mind had begun to erode.
In this I was hardly alone. If nothing else, Reynolds had given birth to a genuine hot potato. In radio commentaries, newspaper editorials, and squad rooms across Vermont, this topic had been bandied around with passion and prejudice, and with little general agreement. Most interesting, however, no one had been seen rallying around the status quo. They couldn’t agree on what exactly was broken, but everyone agreed it needed fixing.
It was a custom-made void for Mark Mullen and his ambitions, whatever end strategy he might have been considering.
Mullen had made of himself a living local legend-although one whose grasp on power was at a crucial juncture. Born outside Barre forty-five years ago, the youngest of two sons of a quarryman father, he’d been elected to the House while still in his early twenties and had stayed there ever since, eventually sitting on most of the committees, and finally-though a member of the minority party that year-being elected speaker, a quirky phenomenon almost unique to Vermont, and one the Republicans had since come to rue.
At the time, however, his selection had been no surprise. An instinctive consensus builder and a genuine “people person,” Mullen paid minimal attention to party lines, orchestrating the Legislature less from the podium and more by intimate personal contact, although naturally most often to the advantage of the Democrats.
His early reign had not been without controversy-with predictable accusations of favoritism and grandstanding-but lately it had smoothed out to the point of becoming bland. His influence had begun to pall. Mullen’s creation of this special committee, instead of letting the Reynolds Bill loose among the standing committees, had struck many as the action of a man both doubtful of his old clout and transparently eager to make a big splash.
My drive to Montpelier this time was very different from before, when the snow and ice had turned the countryside into a crystal palace. Now a strong feeling of change was pervasive in the countryside-the unlocking season, as some called it, was nigh-when winter’s frozen grip began yielding to something just shy of spring.
This wouldn’t have been the case during the legislative sessions of yore. Back then, the State House had called it quits by early April, so the mostly farmer/lawmakers could return to their fields and maybe get in a little late sugaring if they were lucky or lived up north. But times had changed and The Bill, as some sorrowful legislators were calling it, had delayed things even more, so that nobody was placing bets on when they’d be going home.
But while the mood in the State House was souring, its crush of humanity had steadfastly remained the same. The hallways were as crammed with people-an inordinately large number of them in uniform-and the sense of tension was as palpable as before.
I was supposed to meet with the study committee at one but found that the schedule had gone routinely off track. So I located an old and decorous chair, tucked under the wing of one of the building’s two sweeping staircases, and prepared for a long wait.
A tall, thin, angular man wearing a suit and a tangled mop of dark hair slid into the chair next to mine-Commissioner of Public Safety David Stanton.