Willy had read somewhere-unless he'd seen it at the movies-that in certain cultures, if you saved someone's life, that poor bastard was stuck having to return the debt and therefore keep you company until the day he could make good. If ever.
Well, much as he hated to admit it, Willy probably owed his life to Joe Gunther. Joe had been his boss on the police department's detective squad, had hovered sympathetically when he'd wrestled with booze and the divorce. He'd threatened to invoke the Americans with Disabilities Act and sue the town to get Willy back on the force after his injury. He'd cut him slack time and again, hadn't taken offense when Willy did his damnedest to give it, and had acted as a go-between when Willy had fallen in love with Sammie Martens-the other detective who'd made the move from the PD to the Bureau. Finally, after the legislature had created the VBI and the commissioner of public safety had tapped Joe as its field force commander, he'd made it clear that he wouldn't take the job unless Willy's application was given a fair review, after which he'd persuaded Willy to apply.
Why? Because Joe was a decent guy who acted the same way with everyone, and because, while he might not have been the life of any party, he was like a dog with a bone when it came to doing the right thing.
There were times, lots of times, when Willy raged at this man.
He waited at the stoplight, preparing to turn left up Main. There was a shorter route to the office, but driving through downtown every morning had become a ritual.
The pedestrian walk sign began flashing, accompanied by an obnoxious chirping sound designed to help the blind cross safely. Willy shook his head. Only in Brattleboro, capital city of granola heads, where nothing ever happened without everyone worrying about how everyone else felt about it. There was enough hot air in this town to pop the Titanic back to the surface like a cork.
This cynicism belied Willy's years of service to this community, and his caring for its vital signs the way a doctor would a patient's every ache and pain.
He drove north, up Main toward the new, modern courthouse, perched on a grassy knoll like a shiny anchored ship, forcing the street to split around it like a current. Across the way, balanced on a second hill, was a complete architectural contrast: the ancient municipal building. A remodeled nineteenth century school, all bricks and spires and wrought-iron knickknacks, it was where Willy used to work as a cop and still did as a special agent, since the VBI had a small office located on the monstrosity's second floor.
His morning rounds completed, Willy circled the courthouse, cut around the block, and parked in the lot behind the municipal building. Upstairs, Sammie Martens paused by the window at the end of the central hallway just outside the ladies' room, holding a pitcher of water intended for the office coffee machine. She saw Willy get out of his car, cross the parking lot, and vanish from view as he entered the building.
She waited to greet him, knowing he'd come straight up, as usual. She preferred seeing him first in private, if possible, especially if they hadn't spent the previous night together. It helped prepare her for whatever mood he might be in. Dark to middling was the standard she'd grown used to before they'd become intimate, although nowadays, she was happy to note, there was the occasional suggestion that he was lightening up.
She listened in vain for his footsteps coming up the stairs, eventually resting the pitcher on the windowsill. It seemed he'd run into someone in the lobby.
She glanced out the window again, attracted by a sudden movement below, and saw Willy running back to his car, fumbling for his keys.
Surprised, she returned to the office, placed the water beside the coffeemaker, and addressed the older man sitting behind one of the four corner desks.
"Joe, did we just have a call come in? My pager didn't go off."
Joe Gunther looked up from what he'd been reading and gave her a thoughtful look before answering. "Not that I know of."
"I just saw Willy go running back out of the building to his car."
Her boss sat back in his chair and pursed his lips. "Maybe he forgot something at home."
She wasn't convinced. "Maybe. It didn't look like that. I saw him drive up like usual and waited for him at the top of the stairs for almost five minutes. He never made it."
Sam was suddenly struck by her own odd choice of words.
Gunther was used to Willy's ways. In the past, it had usually paid to give him a little leeway, and sometimes much more than a little. Whether Willy was the son Joe had never had or merely possessed by a spirit Joe found perversely irresistible, the bottom line remained that Willy Kunkle was one of the most instinctive police officers Joe had ever worked with, and therefore worth a little more than the usual slack.
"Give him half an hour, Sam. That'll allow for a round trip home and then some. After that, we can start shaking the bushes. If he's on to something, the first thing he'll want is to be left alone."
Sammie Martens went back to making coffee, unsatisfied and faintly apprehensive.
Exactly one-half hour later, she glanced at Gunther again, who merely caught her eye and nodded without comment. Sammie picked up the phone and called Willy's house.
There was no answer.
Frustrated, she rose and headed for the door. "I'm going downstairs-see if I can find out what set him off."
She turned into the radio dispatch area on the first floor and rapped on the bulletproof glass separating the dispatchers from the public. A woman half rose in her seat to peer over the console between them. "Hey, Sam." Her voice was made metallic by the two-way intercom. "What's happenin'?"
"I'm looking for Willy. You see him this morning?"
The woman's expression registered surprise, then confusion. "He didn't tell you guys?" She gestured to the side. "Come around to the door."
Sammie moved down the hallway to a locked door that opened almost as soon as she reached it. The dispatcher took her through the patrol officer's room to an empty office normally used by the PD's parking enforcement division, calling through the door of her own office as she did so, "Wayne, cover for me a sec, will you?"
"It was kinda funny," she explained to Sammie. "We got a call from a New York City detective asking if we could send an officer to locate someone named William Kunkle, who supposedly lived in Brattleboro. I started laughing and told him no one went out of their way to dig up Willy if they could avoid it. The guy was dead quiet, so I explained that Willy was a cop who worked upstairs. Which was exactly when Willy walked by the window. So I shouted to him to take the call on the wall phone. I was watching when he answered. He looked really intense for a couple of minutes, and then he hung up and vanished, just like that." She snapped her fingers. "I figured he was booking it upstairs to see you."
Sammie Martens shook her head. "I saw him through the window, running back to his car. What was the name of the New York cop?"
"Hang on." The woman crossed the narrow hallway into the dispatch area and retrieved a pad from her console desk. "Detective Ogden." She handed the pad over. "That's the number."
Sammie placed her hand on a nearby phone. "This okay?"
The woman nodded before resuming her seat at the console.
Sammie dialed and heard a deep, clear, almost radioquality male voice pick up on the other end. "Detective squad-Ogden."
"Detective Ogden, this is Special Agent Samantha Martens of the Vermont Bureau of Investigation in Brattleboro. You just talked to a colleague of mine, Willy Kunkle?"
"That I did." "I don't want to step on any toes here, but could I ask what you talked about? He took out of here like a jackrabbit and didn't tell us what was up."
There was a long hesitation.
Sammie tried to help the man out. "I could have my supervisor call you. Or you can call him, so you'd know for sure I am who I say I am. VBI's in the phone book."