I raised my eyebrows and turned to go. He stopped me. “Hold it.” He dropped the bug into his drawer and slammed it shut. “Where are you off to?”
“Woodstock. I thought I’d go have a chat with Davis.”
“That’s a hell of a distance for a chat.”
“I’m hoping for a hell of a chat.”
Bill Davis had changed a lot in three years. At the jail, he’d been a study in restrained frustration-a man whose consistent claims of innocence had been, in the public’s eyes, undermined by icy self-control. At his sentencing, standing straight and silent, he had merely shaken his head, incredulous at the stupidity of all those around him.
Now, in the low-ceilinged visitor’s room at Woodstock, the silence was still there, but it floated on bitterness and defeat. He sat opposite me, his arms crossed, staring at the table between us, as far away from this room as his mind could possibly take him. I imagined his years of isolation had made him an expert.
“My name is Gunther. I’m with the Brattleboro Police Department.”
He continued staring at the table.
“I wanted to ask you some questions.”
Still nothing.
“I’ve been spending the last couple of days reading over your case, but I haven’t been able to come up with much.”
A small crease appeared between his eyes. He glanced up at me. “About what?”
“About why you are where you are.”
He smiled gently and gave that familiar shake of the head-a glimpse from long ago. “You people.”
“I’m thinking of reopening the case.”
“You killing time?”
I wondered if I should tell him about Ski Mask but decided against it. “How much of the evidence found against you was planted?”
One eyebrow lifted. “What’s your problem?”
“Like I said, I’ve been going over the case. It feels wrong. I thought you might help me.”
“What for?”
“Right now? To kill time.”
The smile again. “I know how to do that.”
“I thought you might. So how much was planted?”
“All of it.”
“What really happened?”
“Sweet Jesus. If you don’t know that by now, you do need help.”
“So you’ve got nothing to add? Nothing you’ve thought of since the trial?”
He shook his head.
“You were about to go into your apartment, heard someone call your name from around the corner, went to investigate, and got knocked on the back of the head, and that’s all?”
“That’s it.”
“What had you been doing before coming home? It was late, wasn’t it?”
“You know it was. I was out drinking.”
“At Mort’s B amp; G? Like every night?”
“Uh-huh.”
“A couple of beers, a few hours of the bar TV, then home?”
“Right.”
“No dope?”
“No dope.”
“But you woke up with heroin in your veins.”
“That’s right.”
“How did you know that?”
“I didn’t. They told me. I just knew I was high.”
“Had you ever taken heroin before?”
“Don’t ct"›t"› all us niggers?”
“Had you?”
“No.”
“What about Kimberly Harris? Were you two friendly?”
This time he positively grinned. “That’s the biggie, isn’t it? Did you ever see a black chick you wanted to lay?”
“No.”
“Well, I’ve never seen a white chick that interested me neither. Believe it or not, a black man’s idea of dying and going to heaven has nothing to do with any white piece of ass.”
“I just asked if you were friendly.”
“Bullshit.”
“Maybe. Did you talk at all?”
“Sure we talked. She spent damn near every day lying around that pool. Said she wanted a tan like mine. Real funny.”
“No job?”
“Not that I could tell.”
“Did she have any friends?”
“We talked, man. That means the weather, ball games, stuff like that-not her love life.”
“I didn’t mean that. Any comings or goings at all?”
“I barely knew her. Ask Boyers-he’s the man with the eye for detail.”
“Boyers?”
“The manager.”
“He really watched the door, did he?”
Again Davis laughed. “Doors aren’t his thing-more like windows. He is white, though; I guess he’s allowed.”
“You saw him doing that?”
“Sure. I tend to blend in at night.”
“Did he do anything else?”
“Not that I saw.”
“Could he have killed Harris?”
“You thought I did.”
Good point. “Do you know where he was when you were knocked out?”
“No. His lights were on, but that might have been anything.”
“What about someone who might have had it in for you? Had you crossed anyone?”
He leaned forward, his face transformed by anger. “I was fresh off the goddamned bus, man… the only black face in that whole honky town. I came up here to get away from all that shit-the ghetto, the Vietnam stuff. I swallowed all that Vermont, home of the Underground Railroad crap-hook, line, and sinker. But a cracker here’s like a cracker anywhere else. You dudes know what a nigger is just like they do in Georgia or Alabama or anywhere else. Hell yes, I cr celler ossed someone. As soon as I hit town, I crossed every man, woman, and child what saw me.”
He stood up, overturning his chair, and walked away.
I returned through the gates and locked doors, past the listless guards, and slowly traded the jail’s gray embrace for the gentle blur of falling snow. I knew he’d overstated his case-he had good reason. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that his basic argument was probably right on the mark.
The chief medical examiner’s office for the state of Vermont is located in Burlington on the second floor of a renovated residential building on Colchester Avenue. The first floor is occupied by a local dentist. I arrived at the unmarked side door-a concession, no doubt, to the more pessimistic of the dentist’s clients-near the middle of the afternoon, having spent the previous three hours on the interstate from Woodstock. The snow had continued to fall all day, and what little traffic there was had been gradually reduced to using the right lane only. The sole plow truck I’d seen was going in the other direction.
The ME was not in. This was her week on duty, and she pretty much hung her hat at the Medical Center all day. Her secretary suggested I speak with the assistant, who was also not in, having had an emergency call from home, but who might be back later. When I asked whether I could see the ME anyway, wherever she might be, I was informed that was impossible-her schedule indicated she was in the middle of an autopsy at the very moment. I thanked the secretary and left the building.
The drive to the Medical Center took five minutes; locating the morgue took fifteen. I finally found it in the basement, behind several signs warning against unauthorized personnel, on the other side of a door pasted with an oversized dancing Snoopy. I wondered who was responsible for the curious mix of messages.
The room I entered had two large gleaming steel tables surrounded by arcane and expensive-looking equipment on wheels, all lit by a single globe mounted in the center of the ceiling. A scene to warm Dr. Frankenstein’s heart. A small man dressed in green and wearing a transparent rubber apron appeared at another door. I checked in vain for a hump.
“Looking for someone?”
“Dr. Hillstrom.”
“She’s in there. I’ll be right back.” Igor crossed the room and disappeared down a hallway, leaving me to pick my way carefully through a tangle of dimly lit cables and stray chairs to the door he had indicated. I pushed it open and walked in.
It was a smaller version of what I’d just left: one table, half the equipment. It was also well lit and occupied by one tall, angular blonde woman dressed in green and one enormously fat dead woman lying naked face up on the table.