“Don’t tell me,” I suggested, “the gun was missing and the bullets they dug out of the wall match what we got off Billy Conyer.”
“Right-one of them actually went through a bunch of lined-up motor-oil bottles and ended in perfect condition at the bottom of the last one. They grilled West for hours. He never fessed up about the gun. Said he tossed it out the window after the robbery. They looked, but it never showed up.”
I took the semiautomatic from him and weighed it in my hand. “Sound familiar? Young man clamming up for someone else? How often you think we run into that outside the movies?”
J.P. leaned against my doorframe. “Basically never-not once the deal’s on the table.”
I returned the gun. “Where’s Mr. West now?”
“St. Albans. I called up there to ask what kind of guy he was. They said he’s real quiet, almost repressed. A loner. I also talked to someone in the Washington County State’s Attorney’s office-they prosecuted him-and what they described sounded like something between Owen and Billy Conyer.”
“You ask them what he was like before he got caught? Past associates, criminal history, family?”
“Yeah. That part’s more predictable, and more like Conyer’s. But we’ll probably have to talk to some of those folks face-to-face if we want to find a connection to Walter Freund. His name doesn’t appear on the record.”
I smiled at him, the urge to grab hold of this case coming on strong. “Why not start at the source? Let’s talk to Richie himself.”
The Northwest State Correctional Facility outside St. Albans is located in a long, shallow valley, and as we approached it from a distance later the following morning, after a three-hour drive, the razor wire surrounding it gleamed and glittered in the sun, making it appear faintly otherworldly, as if some glimmering, ephemeral presence had set a halo around a collection of low red-brick buildings.
The halo is anything but that, of course. St. Albans is one of the more heavily guarded of Vermont’s prisons, and although not maximum security by federal standards, it is close enough to house some of the worst we have to offer it.
From the outside, though, it looks relatively benign, the wire notwithstanding. Surrounded by rolling green countryside, it is designed to look like a cross between a reform school and a nondescript housing project.
I’d chosen Sammie Martens to accompany me, hoping the trip would give us a chance to talk. So far, all I’d gotten had been monosyllabic responses punctuated by dead silence.
We were brought to an undersized room with a table in its middle and were soon introduced to a thin man with a shaved head and a single dark eyebrow running straight above hollowed-out, furtive eyes. He looked like his stay here had not been the best of therapies.
We sat opposite him. “Mr. West, I’m Lieutenant Gunther. This is Sergeant Martens of the Brattleboro Police Department. We’re facing a situation back home we thought you might help us with.”
“I never been to Brattleboro.”
“That may be, but one of your possessions has.”
He’d been staring at the table between us. That made him look up.
“The gun you used during the robbery,” I explained.
His single eyebrow dipped in the middle as he scowled in concentration.
I continued. “We had to kill a man who came out shooting at us. The gun in his hand was the same one you had that night at the gas station-the one you claimed you threw out the window.”
He sat back in his chair and allowed a half smile. “I guess those things happen.”
“Especially if the same man supplied the same gun to both of you. Where did you get that gun, Mr. West?”
“I don’t remember.”
“How’re they treating you in here?”
His eyes narrowed at the sudden change of subjects. “Like shit.”
“Reason I ask is that if the powers that be are told the right things, they might start thinking you supplied the weapon that was used in the attempted murder of a police officer.”
He looked outraged. “You can’t stick me with that. I threw it out the window.”
I pretended to check the contents of a folder I’d brought in with me. “So you said. You also said you didn’t commit the robbery, were nowhere near the gas station that night, and a bunch of other bullshit. You’ve got zero credibility here, Richie. Basically, if we hand this over to the prosecutor, you’re screwed, and your stay here gets extended God knows how much longer. Aiding and abetting an attempted murder.”
He scratched his forehead. “I didn’tdo anything.”
“You did, though,” I corrected him. “You gave the gun to Walter Freund after you ripped off that gas station, and he gave it to the guy we had to kill. It’s a direct link, Richie, A, B, C. Simple as that. You hear what happened to Walter, by the way?”
He fell for it, much to my relief. “What?”
“He’s on the lam. We nailed him on two homicides, and now the U.S. Marshals are hot on his heels. He’s going up for more time than he’s got years left in him. You might as well forget he ever existed.”
“You’re full of shit.”
I pulled a copy of the Reformer’s front page out of the folder. “Guess you don’t watch TV,” I said, having already been told of his habits, and slid the article across to him.
He picked it up, read the headline about Freund and stared at the picture, then let it drop back onto the tabletop. He looked crestfallen.
“It’s over, Richie. He won’t be there to help you when you get out-in fact, he used that gun to give you one last poke in the gut. Unless,” I said, “you start getting chatty. After all, the opposite can be true about my talking to someone. Help us out, and maybe life can be made a little better for you in here.”
He didn’t say anything.
“You gave the gun to Walter, right?”
“Yeah.” His voice was a monotone.
“You know, Richie, if it’s any comfort, you’re not alone. You might even be the lucky one. Walter set up two other people we know of. Now one of them’s dead and the other’s looking at worse time than you are, for helping kill a woman and her baby. Walter may have seemed like your only friend back then, but he was in it purely for himself.”
“You’re just seeing one side.”
I didn’t argue. He’d lost enough already. “I know. We don’t always have a choice. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry it got you in here, and I’ll make sure to tell the SA if you help us today. Parole comes up soon.”
He looked vaguely hopeful. “Thanks.”
“Tell me something,” I added conversationally. “Where were you and Walter hanging out when you got nabbed?”
“Around Barre. I was working at Thunder Road the summer we met. He had a job there, too.”
Thunder Road was Vermont’s only paved stock car track-a quarter-mile oval placed in a bowl on the side of a mountain with an incredible view-and a magnet to locals born to the car culture. My brother Leo had driven there years ago, with me cheering him on from the pits.
“Boy,” I said, “there’s a name from the past. I used to go up there all the time. Were you working with a crew?”
The first signs of life stirred as his eyes lit up. “Yeah. I drove, too-street stocks.”
“No shit? That’s great. Who’d you work for?”
“Danny Mullen. He was into late models, but he had a street stock he let us run-a Toyota pickup. Wasn’t much to look at, but moved like a raped ape.”
I fought to contain my own excitement and not let him see the importance of what he’d just said. “That’s great. They’re on today, aren’t they? Every Thursday? Wonder if Danny’s still involved.”
Richie West was by now almost totally relaxed. “You kidding? He’s like addicted to it. He’d have to be dead to miss a race.”
I got up, leaned over, and shook his hand, more grateful then he realized. “Maybe you can join him back up there before too long. I want to thank you for being straight with us, Rich. Try to keep your nose clean.”