In the background, we could hear her monotone, “… You have the right to an attorney. Should you… ” But there was something about his outrage she wasn’t hearing. He wasn’t angry that she was a cop, he was upset about not getting the night he’d been hoping for. That his fantasy was still holding sway had me worried.
There was a sudden loud report.
“Put it down, Kurt,” she said warily. “I’m a cop. You mess with me now, you’ll never get out of jail.”
“Mess with you? That’s exactly what I’m going to do. You promised me that much, and that’s what I’m going to get.”
Headlights appeared behind us. Kunkle driving at breakneck speed, threatening to put us in the ditch.
And then Sammie’s mike went dead.
“That’s it,” Spinney said, shouting now, the adrenaline making us all crazy. “Number 68.”
He cut into the driveway, fishtailing. Behind us, Willy didn’t bother breaking-he just smashed into the rear of the Toyota. He was halfway to the front door before Lester and I had gotten out of our car.
“Willy,” I shouted, “think.”
He wasn’t in the mood. He wrestled with the locked door for all of two seconds, pulled his gun out and shot it five times, finally kicking it open. He, Lester, and I all ran into the house like we were storming a beach and found Sammie, her skirt hiked up and her sweater torn, resting with one knee in the small of Peterson’s back, holding his wrist at an excruciating angle. He was facedown on the floor, semiconscious.
She blew a strand of blonde hair out of her face, “Where the hell’ve you been?”
Suddenly calm, Willy holstered his gun, extracted a pair of handcuffs, and walked over to her. As he bent over and slapped the cuffs on behind Peterson’s back, he gave Sammie a quick kiss on the cheek. “Nice job, kiddo.”
Chapter 18
Old stomping grounds-I was in the Brattleboro police department’s closet-size interrogation room off the detective squad area, sitting at a small table against the wall, catty-corner from Kurt Peterson. He was looking a little the worse for wear, Sammie having given him a sizable black eye, a mild concussion, and a kick between the legs that still made him limp.
Introductions, Miranda rights, and other amenities had already been dealt with.
“Kurt,” I began, sounding sorrowful, “you’ve made a real mess of things. You’re looking at some serious time behind bars.”
He’d been staring at his feet but looked up at me. “I know it looks bad, sir. I don’t know what got into me.” His tone of voice reminded me of an insincere bully toadying up to the principal.
“You tried to rape a police officer, among a raft of other things, so you can stuff the choirboy imitation. And while you’ve never done time, you have been in trouble before, which makes me think our prosecutor’ll throw the book at you. She’s a woman, by the way, very sensitive to how other women get treated by guys like you, and she’s not overworked like a state’s attorney. She only gets our cases. You understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
I sat back and crossed my legs. “Which is not to say I can’t be useful to you.”
A silence filled the air before he asked timidly, “How?”
“I’m the guy who advises this prosecutor, who testifies in front of the judge, and who’s the boss of the officer you tried to rape.”
“I didn’t really try to rape-”
I smacked a hand flat on the table and made him jump, but when I spoke, I did so softly, “I smell any more bullshit coming from you, I walk straight out that door and we never meet again. Do you understand?”
“Sorry.”
“I can influence how people see things.”
Again, I let silence prompt him to ask, “What’s that mean?”
“You tell me something you know and I don’t-and which I find useful-and I’ll ask our prosecutor to maybe knock off one of the offenses we have against you. Small offense for small news; bigger offense for bigger news.”
He looked at me pleadingly. “I don’t know anything.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Kurt. You’ve got half a dozen things up your sleeve I’d like a look at. Try this: Where’d you get the key to that condo?”
His eyes widened slightly. “The key?”
“Yeah. Who gave you the key to get in?”
“Rusty Warner,” he blurted out. “He’s the caretaker.”
I nodded. I already knew about Warner. We’d dealt with him just an hour earlier. “Very good. Rusty Warner. See? I can use that-very helpful. How’d you two meet?”
“I don’t know. You work on the mountain long enough, you get to know almost everybody, sooner or later.”
“Especially if you’re a social butterfly, right? And the instructors tend to get around. You had a good guide there, didn’t you?”
Reinforcing my schoolyard image earlier, he even squirmed a little. “I… guess.”
“Richie,” I prompted him.
He broke into a smile. “Oh, right. Yeah. Richie. He cruised all night. You’re right there.”
“And he tucked you under his wing, from what I heard.”
His pride stirred slightly. “We hung out. I don’t know about tucking under any wings.”
I feigned surprise. “You were the ring leader?”
“No, no. Ring leader… Jeez. No. I guess if I think about it, I suppose he sort of took charge… sometimes.”
I scratched my head. “Huh, this may be tougher than I thought. If I’m going to put you in a good light, I got to know in my gut how you fit into all this. There’re a lot of people involved, after all-we need to know who does hard time and who gets a slap on the wrist.”
His forehead began to glisten. “What do you mean, ‘all this?’ You make it sound like I’m part of some mob or something.”
I downplayed his panic with a wave of the hand. “Oh, a simple foot soldier, you and I know that. Small fry. Still, we had to kill Richie-he’s history. You, you’re a bird in hand.”
He began speaking rapidly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I really don’t. I mean, I know I did a bad thing, being drunk and all, and she did kind of lead me on, if that’s okay to say. But you’re putting me somewhere I don’t belong.”
I got up and walked around the tiny room a couple of times, as if totally befuddled. “Kurt, you had the drugs, you had access to the house, you kept company with a known bad guy, you attacked a police officer after she’d identified herself, and I’ve got a small army of witnesses willing and ready to tell the judge that this wasn’t just some isolated night-gone-bad. You were a dealer, Kurt-plain and simple. Maybe not a top player, maybe just selling what fell between the cracks, but still a dealer. If you’re going to tell me you did this all on your own, how am I going to tell our prosecutor to go easy? She’ll bury you alive.”
I stopped and leaned on the table, so my face was inches from his. “You need to tell me where the bigger fish are swimming, Kurt.”
His face was now covered with sweat. “I can’t.”
I stayed put. “Before, it was, ‘I don’t know.’ Now, it’s, ‘I can’t.’ I translate that as, ‘I won’t.’ Is that what I’m hearing?”
“No. I want to help.”
“You better want to help, Kurt, or we’ll throw away the key on you.”
He swallowed. “I’m scared.”
I sat down again. “Can’t blame you there. It’s a scary business… especially if you’re alone. A man like you needs a man like me in times like this.”
He showed a little petulance. “Being in jail is better than being dead.”
I laughed softly. “That’s only because you think it’s an either/or choice. It’s not. It’s a little more complicated than that. See, what you did last night? That was all against us-cops. No innocent bystanders were involved. You broke the law and we can put you in jail, but we can also cut you loose. Merely spread the word that we had a long and fruitful conversation with you and are throwing you back like the little, helpful minnow that you are.”