He shook his head. “Right.”
I sat down. “I’m Julian.”
“First thing,” he said. “Are you a cop?”
I squinted, confused. “What? No. Aren’t you?”
“Yeah. I need to know, though. Are you working with any police currently? Other than this meeting. A reminder that being untruthful here would qualify as entrapment.”
“No. God no. You’re the only one I’ve talked to. What’s this about?”
He nodded, satisfied. “I’ll explain. But first, how do you know Vince Decierdo?”
A stout appeared on a cardboard coaster in front of me. The music in the bar was low but audible; some live album from the seventies. The place was empty except for a few men playing pool across the room, and I had yet to see the bartender. There was no danger of being overheard.
“That’s complicated,” I said. I had to be careful. “I know him through some mutual acquaintances. We’ve come in close contact a number of times.”
“And what makes you think he was involved in the disappearance.”
“A few things. Mostly a combination of gossip and a hunch.”
“Your mutual acquaintances. Do they work for Decierdo?”
“Some of them.”
“Do you?”
I nodded. It was an undressing admission, but necessary to build trust. I had to give him something. He processed the information and nodded.
We spoke small talk at first. Beginnings, hobbies, beer. We felt each other out, and then he started talking. Somewhere along the line I had earned his trust and he just started talking, like he’d been wanting to talk for a long time.
“I promised myself, next time that name came up, I’d follow up on it,” he said, staring at the bar as he spoke. “Next time I heard the name, I’d finally go through with it.”
I waited for an explanation. He continued.
“I’ve been on the force here in Eagle for nine months,” he said. “First full-time gig. It’s been all desk stuff, admin, basic bullshit. A few traffic assists but that’s it. They keep the new guys off real detail for at least a year. Way longer than it’s supposed to be, which pissed me off early on, but I got a job so I’m happy, you know?”
He took a swig of beer, and I followed suit.
“I grew up here, in the mountains. Leadville High School, academy down in Colorado Springs. Always wanted to be a mountain cop. Summit was full, and Lake County’s too small. Job came open here in Eagle and I jumped on it.
“I get the desk job, and I’m just happy to be here, but then it starts dragging. Should only be a month or two, get your feet wet, pay your dues, then start doing real work. It goes three months, four months, five. By six months, I start asking around. What’s taking so long, what I’m I doing wrong, that kind of thing. Apparently it’s normal. That’s what they tell me.”
He talked like he knew me. The words floated out. He was explaining, setting something up. He wanted to tell me.
“There’s two factions on the force. Rookies, new blood like me. We get the admin tasks and get ignored. Then there’s the old guard; real weathered bulls who’ve been around. Most have been here, working the same detail fifteen, twenty years. It’s like a closed club, it’s hard to crack. They have their own gatherings, don’t tell you shit, just assign you busy work to keep you out of the way until you get fed up and quit. I came in with two guys, and both’ve ‘em moved on already. Found better jobs, opportunities to do real police work. Can’t blame ‘em. But this is my dream job, you know, so I want to stick it out. I love the mountains.
“Anyway,” he said, “I’m only telling you this to give you an idea of how the police work up here. It’s an old boys club, run more like an old western sheriff’s office than a real force. There’s a lot of old relationships, deals that get done, understandings with the locals, stuff like that if you get my drift. They don’t tell me shit, but I still see it. Different rules for different folks.
“The first time the name ‘Vince Decierdo’ came up was right after I signed on. I was like two weeks in, and we get a call, kinda like yours. Missing persons. Lady named Abigail, just disappeared one night, caller hadn’t seen her for a week. So I take down the report, bring it to my superiors, and generally something like this, they’d have me monitor it. Keep an ear out, run through the database to see if there are any matches, that sorta thing. Would have just done it myself, but they won’t let me shit without getting approval first, especially that early on. So my boss just tells me they’ll take it from there. Thought it odd, but maybe that’s how they do things around there.
“So I don’t think anything of it until the next day, when I check the database to see if there’s an update—because I’m bored, sitting at that desk all day, so I figure I’d check in—and the record isn’t there. Not it’s closed, or expunged—all that leaves a trail—but it just isn’t there. No record of it at all, like it never existed. Stuff like that isn’t supposed to happen, and even that early on I knew that. So I go back to my boss about it, thinking there might be a computer error or something, and again he tells me not to worry about it.
“Well, that raised a red flag. I knew that wasn’t right, but I’m still trying to get my feet under me, so I don’t pursue it any further. But I remembered it. Then, a few months later, we get another one. Name ‘Decierdo’ gets mentioned again. Same thing; I pass it along, next day, case is removed. Gone again.”
Michael Raphino was taking a considerable risk in telling me these things, especially since we barely knew each other. I found it a little odd that he would be so forthcoming so early. He was a cop, and that provided a certain level of protection, though I wasn’t exactly sure how far Vince’s immunity stretched, and from what I could tell, neither was Officer Raphino.
As if he knew I was having this thought, he partially addressed it.
“I told myself, the next time the name came up, I’d follow the lead. Independently. You reported Decierdo for having involvement in a missing persons, so you’re interested in the same truth I am. And by making that report, you’ve knowingly put yourself in a compromised position, if he is who I think he is.”
“Who do you think he is?” I asked.
He finished his beer and raised two fingers. “A kingpin of some sort. Drugs, probably. Narcotics have been a problem up here since I can remember. Something about the isolation makes it fertile ground for addicts. When I was a kid, there was one big bust per season. Pills or smack. That was back when the cops gave a shit.”
It made me uneasy to hear him talk about it. But it was also exhilarating.
“But you can’t go after it,” I said, “because they won’t let you do real police work.”
“Pretty much,” he said. “They’d just stonewall me any chance they got. I don’t know what those old boys in the force are getting, but they got some sort of deal, I guarantee you. Half those fuckers are so crooked they can’t see straight.”
“What about Summit County? The cops over there?” It would have been their jurisdiction, anyway. Most everything Vince did happened somewhere within Summit County.
He shook his head. “They’re all bought. Summit too. Those guys are no better than the stiffs I work with.”
An old, bent over barkeep delivered two fresh beers without a word.
Raphino took a breath. He was done with his monologue. “So,” he said, “this is the part where you tell me what you know.”
I had thought about this constantly between the time I left the Eagle County Police station and 9:15 p.m. I had thought a lot about how much I would say, and how much I would leave out. I made a promise to myself to err on the side of caution, to give him enough to chew on, but not incriminate myself. I had not expected his lengthy explanation, however. I had not expected Officer Raphino to spill everything he knew about Vince to a near perfect stranger.