“What was Pamela like, as a daughter?”
“Angry, like her father.”
“She ever get into trouble?”
“Trouble?”
“Yeah, like at school. You know, the usual things nowadays-drugs, sex, stuff like that.”
She looked straight at me for a long moment. It was the first time she’d made direct eye contact. “That was very controversial.”
I waited for more, but that was it. This woman’s laundry was not for public airing-especially this laundry, I thought. I held up the photograph. “Can I borrow this? I’ll send it back as soon as I have copies made.”
“Yes. It doesn’t matter.”
I pulled a business card out of my wallet and handed it to her. “I’ll get out of your hair. Thanks for your help. Do call me if he gets in touch, will you?”
She took the card without looking at it.
I walked toward the entrance hall with the picture in my hand. She stayed where she was. I hesitated at the door. “Mrs. Stark, is there anything you would like to know about your daughter’s death? You can ask me if you’d like-it’s all right.”
She stood there in the middle of the room, arms slack by her sides, again looking into some nebulous middle distance, as abandoned and as lonely as the only living bird in a desolate forest. “No.”
I let myself out.
· · ·
“Danvers.”
“This is Joe Gunther in Brattleboro.”
“How’d you make out on that DEA stuff?”
“Hit the jackpot. We haven’t nabbed the guy yet, but we know who he is-Steven Cioffi, in case you’re interested. Many thanks.”
“Sure. What’s on your mind? I don’t guess you called to kiss me on both cheeks?”
“No, there is something else.”
“Just so nothing’s left unsaid here, you do realize I’ve helped you out so far as a favor, right?”
“But you are interested in that bug.”
“To an extent, true.”
“And you’re not going to tell me why.”
“True again.”
“So much for altruism. Here’s something for nothing then: Colonel Henry Stark. He’s the one in the ski mask, the owner of the bug, and the father of Kimberly Harris, a.k.a. Pamela Stark. I have a feeling he’s been around in various service branches, but the Army might be the best place to start. Maybe the CIA too.”
“Lovely.” He didn’t sound pleased.
“Of course, we’d be more than happy to request an interminable file search through normal channels for our own humble selves, and hope to get it before we’re all dead of old age, but I’m hoping your curiosity matches ours and that you can cut a few corners.”
“I’ll be back in touch.”
I put down the receiver and smiled at Brandt. “He’ll do it.” Brandt had propped the photograph of the Stark family on his desk. “Hardly Father Knows Best, is it?”
“No, but it’s a great shot for our purposes. What do you think about distributing an eight-by-ten blowup of his face all over town-and letting Katz have it, too?”
“What if Danvers says he’s a superspook or something and we’re supposed to keep our mouths shut?”
“If the damage is already done, then that’s too bad. We’re only a bunch of hicks, after all-no sense of global priorities.”
Brandt rubbed the side of his nose and smiled. “I’ll call J.P. tonight and have it ready for tomorrow morning’s edition.” He picked up the picture and looked at it again. “You know, we’re sticking our necks out a little. We still don’t have proof Ski Mask and Stark are one and the same-legally, that is.”
I shrugged. “So don’t put Stark’s name on it. He’s probably going under Smith or Brown or Jones anyway-everyone else is. The worst that can happen is that Colonel Stark will return from some illicit affair in Guatemala, where he’s beeereed n subverting the natives for the last two months, and sue us for everything we own.”
“Yes, I suppose. That’s comforting, at least.”
· · ·
The following morning, Brandt met me in the hallway with a copy of the Reformer. “Sneak preview; that’s an early run of today’s edition.”
I opened it up and saw Stark staring at me again. SKI MASK REVEALED, SAY POLICE, was the awkward headline; the caption under the picture asked, “Have you seen this man?” and gave our telephone number. It also identified Stark by name. “I see you decided to go whole hog.”
“The name? Yeah, I figured, what the hell, when you’re nine-tenths in, you might as well take the bath.”
“That make Wilson happy?”
“Hard to tell. I think he’s on a general hate binge. I’ve got more, though.”
I had to smile at the light in his eyes. “Oh?”
“I got a call from Danvers at the crack of dawn. He said he couldn’t send us anything on Stark officially-apparently the man’s classified-but he did give me a rough outline, which is all we really need.”
“And?”
“It’s even better-or worse-than you suspected. Stark’s a super-spook of sorts-CIA, maybe, although Danvers won’t say; it might be Military Intelligence. Anyhow, he’s done covert work in Korea, Latin America, Africa, Beirut, you name it. He was in Special Forces during Vietnam and worked a lot behind the lines. Apparently, he’s a real hands-on guy-not an administrator. I also got the feeling that behind all the patriotic crap about someone having to do a dirty job in a dirty world, the guy is regarded as a bit of a maniac-not just a stone-cold killer, but a quote-unquote real strange guy to boot, whatever that means. He’s so good, though, that he has ‘the longest leash in covert operations.’ Those are Danvers’s words again.”
Brandt took back the paper and folded it under his arm. “I would guess with all this mess that the leash is about to get yanked-hard.”
27
The press conference did take place, later that morning, but only Wilson was there to answer questions. He didn’t reveal Cioffi’s identity but only that the police department had zeroed in on one particular suspect-who had apparently already fled-and that hopes were high for “a rapid resolution of the case.”
When asked about Bill Davis, he said that while the case against him wasn’t as “structured” as it had been originally, it still didn’t exclude him from “the realm of guilt.” No evidence had surfaced that didn’t “fit the scenario that Davis had possibly worked with the man now being sought.”
About Henry Stark, Wilson revealed nothing from Danvers’s report. He conceded that the colonel’s rash actions had caused a reopening of the case, but he was not to be construed as some avenging ange coulv›
He took an unusually nasty beating from the reporters, none of whom was remotely satisfied with his comments, and I must admit I grudgingly tipped my hat to him for maintaining his cool, if not his control over the English language. That calm demeanor was reserved for reporters only, however; the rest of us gave him wide berth when he walked fuming back into the building.
Not that many of us were there to get in his way. Even with the added help from the state police and the Windham County Sheriff ’s Department, we were stretched so thin we had meter maids out directing traffic-a breach of rules we were bound to hear about at some later date.
The rest of us were either tucked away in offices, scrutinizing every scrap of Cioffi’s belongings, or out on the road asking questions about his background. At the rate we were going, his anonymity wasn’t going to last for long.