Middlebury is among the most picturesque, active, well-situated small towns in Vermont. Located halfway between Rutland and Burlington, on the state’s western slope, it benefits from the twin charms of the rocky, tree-choked, looming Green Mountains on one side, and the gently rolling, fertile farmland of the Champlain Valley on the other.
With a quick glance at a map, one is hard put to even find Middlebury, dominated as it is by its urban neighbors, not to mention Montpelier beyond the peaks to the northeast. But closer scrutiny reveals something of its past importance. Not only does almost every longitudinal road converge for a moment in Middlebury, but the valley’s sole railroad also cuts right through it. In odd contrast to today, Middlebury in 1820 was one of the largest towns in Vermont, a center of education, industry, transportation, and architecture.
It remains in many ways reminiscent of its heyday, filled with mansions, church steeples, and elegant greens. It also suffers for those same reasons. As a crossroads, it is pure bedlam, like an antique spring at the heart of a computer. Buses, trucks, trains, cars, recreational vehicles, and the thousands of people using them converge in a tangle of narrow, poorly designed, curvilinear roads contrary enough to drive a lab rat nuts. The irony is that around World War One, Joseph Battell, a major local benefactor, and the state’s single largest landowner, declared the newfangled automobile such a menace that he tried to ban it from his road-the Middlebury Gap-which is now one of Vermont’s chief tourist attractions during leaf-peeping season.
Today, as Rarig had earlier implied, the town owes its fame-and much of its commercial success-to the college named after it, created in 1800 as an alternative to the “ungodly” University of Vermont established by Ira Allen-brother of the often-drunk leader of the Green Mountain Boys.
Typical of most academic towns, however, this relationship is a distinct mixed blessing. The college is wealthy, tax-exempt, and archly proprietary. Owner of vast amounts of real estate, it pays little cash to the town while freely using its tax-fed infrastructure. Like a land-rich lord of yore, it sits atop a pristine hill, crowned with an assortment of architectural monuments-both stately and absurd-issuing statements either arrogant or beleaguered, and providing enough heated debate to keep the town in a perpetual lather.
None of this is evident to anyone passing through, of course, except perhaps the traffic problems. As Rarig and I entered the village’s vehicular Gordian knot from the south, I was impressed as always by Middlebury’s sheer sense of vigor. If internecine squabbling played a part in that, it was nevertheless a vital sign and, in this case, a healthy one.
I wended our way through the various curves opposite the stately Middlebury Inn, down into the crowded, bustling village proper, across the meandering Otter Creek, and up the opposite slope onto the broader, more open, carefully manicured campus. To the gritty, low-built, red brick of downtown, the college was a striking contrast, marked largely by broad swaths of color-green grass, broad, black avenues, and an imposing number of fortress-sized, light-gray stone buildings. If the traditional vision of academe was one of isolated hilltop serenity, this school fit the bill.
The image was enhanced, in addition, by there being very few people within sight.
I pulled up opposite one of the large buildings and looked around.
“What’s wrong?” Rarig asked.
“This town just had a drive-by shooting, which means the local PD must be bristling right now. Why haven’t we seen any sign of that, and why’s the campus look so empty?”
“I don’t know about the cops, but the administration probably issued an advisory to keep under cover. Lew says they’ve done that in the past when there’s been some controversy. They tend to be a little hysterical sometimes.”
“Can’t say I blame ’em this time-people getting shot on the street. Where’s the Geonomics Center?”
He pointed straight ahead. I noticed his hand was trembling slightly. “That’s the Russian/U.S. think tank I told you about. It’s a block or two down and to the left-Hillcrest Avenue. Why?”
“So we can avoid it. That’s where most of the police’ll be right now, collecting evidence. Where’s that priest hole you told me about?”
“Seymour Street, near the railroad tracks. Turn around, go back across the river, take the first left and go up about a quarter mile.”
I followed his directions, ending up in a distinctly poorer section of town, nevertheless lined by a row of tidy houses, however worn and in need of paint. Rarig guided me to the driveway of one of them, where we ended up facing an attached garage with an apartment perched on top of it.
He thrust his chin straight ahead. “Up there.”
I glanced at the house beside us. “The owners know about it?”
“I’m the owners. I rent it out through a cover. They only know the apartment is used once in a blue moon by a guy who likes his privacy.”
Rarig got out of the car, looked around nervously, and headed for the back of the garage. I followed him to where a narrow outside staircase led up to the second floor. The tension I’d noticed on the drive up was still fueling him like shoveled coal. I began to wonder about some of the ulterior reasons he might’ve had for wanting me along.
“It wouldn’t matter anyway,” he explained. “Even if someone did start nosing around. The stairs are wired to a silent alarm, and the door is armored. Lew would know somebody was coming. There’s also an escape route, like a laundry chute, that he can use in an emergency. It ends up in the basement of the house, near the bulkhead on the far side.”
We reached the top, where Rarig extracted an exotic magnetic key from his pocket. He fitted it not into the keyhole mounted under the knob of the peeling wooden door, but into what looked like a knothole near the hinges. The door swung open the wrong way, and we stepped into a small antechamber equipped with a second door. Rarig closed the one to our backs. There was a loud mechanical click from in front of us. “Shutting the first frees up one of the locks of this one,” Rarig told me. He pounded on the door with his fist. “Lew? It’s John Rarig.”
There was dead silence from the other side. Rarig’s shoulders slumped. “I was afraid of this.”
He fitted another, conventional key to the lock and led us into the apartment. I noticed as I passed the edge of the second door that it was equipped with some sort of electronic sensor.
The place was small, dark, tidy, and airless. It was also as empty and as still as a tomb. Rarig stood in its middle, his hands slack by his sides, looking around him like a homeowner whose house had just burned to the ground.
He shook his head. “God damn it,” he said. “I knew he was in trouble.”
I checked the rest of the place quickly, looking into the bathroom and glancing under the twin bed. It all looked as ready for occupancy as a fresh motel room, except for the fine layer of dust over everything.
“Show me where he lives,” I told Rarig.
“That’s the last place he’d be.”
“It’s all we got.”
Reluctantly, he pulled himself away, closing both doors neatly, as if for future use.
I led the way back to the car, speaking over my shoulder. “He might be okay,” I tried to sound upbeat. “He could’ve lost his keys and had to hole up somewhere else. Didn’t you two have a plan for getting in touch in case something went wrong?”
Rarig glanced up from watching the ground before him. “He’s supposed to leave a coded message on my phone ma-”
His voice trailed off. I followed his blank stare to the end of the driveway, where a car had just slowed to a stop. My whole body tensed, recognizing the universal blandness of an unmarked police vehicle.
The driver, surprisingly casual, swung out and approached us. He was wearing dark glasses, but I recognized him immediately as Jimmy Zarrillo, Middlebury’s sole detective. As luck would have it, outside of the chief, Zarrillo was the only man in the entire department I knew.