“Hi, Joe,” he said, leaning over to shake hands. “Long time.”
“Yup.” I gestured at the stream of people passing before us. “You pretty pleased with what you set in motion?”
Still smiling, he watched me closely. “I set in motion?”
“Reynolds wouldn’t have started all this without the governor’s blessing, and Howie wouldn’t have given it without consulting you. That makes you the logical choice for the next Secretary of Criminal Justice.”
“He consulted me, sure,” Stanton agreed coyly, ignoring my conclusion. “But this is Reynolds’s baby. Not mine.”
“Oh-oh-that mean you’re looking to jump ship?”
He laughed. “You’re worse than the news guys. I have no idea where this is headed.”
“I’m not against it heading somewhere,” I said to reassure him. “And I never expected the Legislature not to tie it up in knots. But I was thinking as I drove up here that the debate’s been pretty interesting-opened up a few closets a lot of people might’ve liked kept shut.”
“Like the sheriffs?”
“Like everybody-all that local control baloney. I’ve always loved how those official press releases about interagency cooperation compared to the real thing. This has ripped off some of the camouflage.”
Stanton cut me a look. “Sounding pretty cynical, there, Joe.”
I shook my head. “I’m happy it’s getting shaken up-long overdue. I just hope things don’t end up exactly where they were.”
He stared at the floor, nodding silently in agreement.
I became aware of a shadow to my left and turned to find a young page awkwardly standing by my chair. “What’s up?”
“Are you Mr. Gunther?”
I admitted as much.
“Speaker Mullen would like to meet you in his office.”
Stanton laughed softly. “Watch your step there, Joe.”
I got up and patted his shoulder. “You, too. For what’s it worth, I think you’d be good in that job.”
I followed the page upstairs to the second floor, through the vast, empty House chamber with its brilliant red carpeting and enormous bronze chandelier festooned with statues of nude women, snakes, and eagles. We climbed the low stage at the front, circled the carved, pulpit-like speaker’s podium, and almost ducked under a large, low-hung portrait of George Washington into a narrow hallway connecting the old building to a new addition housing a modern cafeteria and Mark Mullen’s office.
There, barricaded behind a small reception area guarded by a secretary, I found the speaker stretched out across an old leather tilt-back chair, his feet planted on his antique desk, talking on the phone. He smiled as the page faded away, waved me to a chair, and quickly wrapped up his conversation.
He then rose, leaned over, shook hands, and said, “Joe Gunther. I’m sorry we’ve never met till now. Heard a lot about you. Appreciated what you said when the Senate called you in. You want some coffee?”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
“I’m also sorry we had to drag you up here again, but I told ’em I didn’t think we could do this thing justice if we didn’t get some of the brains in on it they’d had the first time around.”
“There going to be big changes?” I asked innocently.
He didn’t duck. “Count on it. You don’t throw out over two hundred years of tradition without pissing a few people off. Reynolds was living in a dream world if he thought otherwise. You two buddy-buddy?”
“Hardly.”
“Good, ’cause he’s in for a wake-up. The Senate has no idea what’s going on in this state. They see some dead babies, all the headlines, they run a poll, and next thing you know, they’re talking about a mandate from the people. It’s a joke. The people don’t know any more about the problem than they do. It is a problem-I know that just like you do-but to solve it you need expert advice, to find out what you can do and what you can’t. Simple as that-and hard as that, too. People don’t take kindly to politicians saying, ‘This is the way it’s going to be.’ You gotta give ’em a sense they’re part of the process.” He paused and then smiled. “But, shit. You know all that. What do you think we ought to do?”
I had to hand it to him. He was affable, gregarious, informal, and inviting-a very likeable mix-and very unlike his rival in the Senate. He also spoke with the practical assurance of a veteran and left his listeners thinking they were dealing with a man who would use the tools at hand to get the job done. The amount of Mullen’s blarney probably didn’t differ much from Reynolds’s, but it was a lot more pleasant to listen to.
“So you agree with Reynolds that a big change needs to happen?”
“You kidding? That’s the downside of two hundred years of tradition-it’s two hundred years old.” He laughed. “Sure it’s screwed up-everybody guarding his own little patch of dirt. Dumber than hell. But how do you change it?”
I realized it wasn’t a rhetorical question. “Maybe shoot for the middle ground? Somewhere between seventy agencies and one. And standardize communications and procedures so we all play out of the same book. I don’t really know, either,” I admitted uncomfortably, “but it’s pretty clear the more we share, the better off we are. Programs like CUSI, NUSI, and single dispatch centers like the one in Chittenden County could be used as models.”
He was nodding vigorously. “Right, right. That’s it. Use what we got as examples. That way, law enforcement’s leading its own instead of being pushed into something by a bunch of politicians.”
The same page who’d escorted me here reappeared in the doorway.
“They want him downstairs?” Mullen asked, jumping to his feet.
“Yes, sir.”
He shook my hand again as I headed out. “Give ’em all you got, Joe. No time to hold back. Good talking to you.”
With that staccato pep talk echoing in my ears, I followed my skinny guide back through the building, this time to the second floor of the north wing, where the House held its hearings.
It had been an odd encounter to no apparent purpose, although I was conscious of feeling that, like a bull going up for auction, I’d just been given the once-over by the money behind the bidders.
I returned to Brattleboro that evening, after two hours with the study committee. The experience had been appropriately more chaotic than during my encounter with the senators, since the contradictory special interests had finally broken cover to wield their influence. But one thing I did come away with was the conviction that Reynolds’s clean if simpleminded bill would reemerge as a shredded shadow of its previous self.
The car phone went off as I was nearing the interstate’s Putney exit, north of Brattleboro.
It was Ron. “Looks like that intel meeting you attended a few months ago paid off,” he said. “I just got a call from Budd Sheeney in Hinsdale. He’s been showing Resnick’s picture around since you handed it out, and he thinks he might’ve found something. He’s being a little coy-probably worried we’ll steal the credit unless he talks to you himself.”
I sighed at the mentality, memories of where I’d just left fresh in my mind. “Where is he?”
“I didn’t know where you were, so I didn’t set anything up.”
“Call him back. I’m fifteen minutes out. I’ll drop by the station, pick you up if you want, and we can go straight to him.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he answered. “I don’t need to come. I’ll get back to you with a location.”
I was almost in Brattleboro when the phone buzzed again. “Hinsdale High School parking lot,” Ron said. “He’ll be waiting for you.”
Hinsdale, New Hampshire, is right across the river from Brattleboro, so integrally linked to it that the relationship is essentially symbiotic-they have a greyhound racetrack that our citizens regularly patronize, while our Putney Road commercial strip-complete with a sales tax New Hampshire has so far avoided-still serves as their primary shopping place. The best example of this close tie can be found with the local Wal-Mart. When Vermont was making a stance as the nation’s only Wal-Mart free state, the company defiantly planted an outlet within view on the Hinsdale side of the Connecticut River. Over time, not only had such proximity not gutted Brattleboro’s downtown, but Wal-Mart had been forced to ask its rival’s board of selectmen to accept the residue of a slipshod, malfunctioning sewer system instead of trucking it daily to who-knew-where. Brattleboro had politely refused.