Occam's Razor (38 page)

“Yes,” he said hesitantly and then added, “Why have I been brought here?”

I didn’t answer him. “Eight years, three kids. Place must be like a nuthouse when you get home. Your wife easy to get along with?” I glanced back at the file, “Sherry?”

“Sure, and the kids aren’t bad.”

I raised my eyebrows. “A glowing report. In my line of work, that usually means a cover-up. You hiding something?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but I cut him off. “Tell me how long you’ve known Frankie and the boys. You play poker together often?”

He flushed red and stammered, “N-no. That was the first time I’d done it.”

“Done it? Done what?”

“Play… cards.”

I smiled. “Wasn’t sure what you meant there for a second. Four guys out at a bachelor birthday party. One thing leads to another.”

“We just played poker.”

I looked at him for a long, measured ten seconds and then went back to the file. “Right. So how come you got invited?”

“I know Don Carter from softball. They’d asked somebody else for the card game, but he couldn’t make it. I said I’d go to even things out. Sherry said it would be okay.”

I nodded. “Well, I guess if we had to, we could ask her about that. She know you’re down here?”

“No. She thinks I’m still at work.” He feigned looking at his watch, although his shirtsleeve covered half its face. “I ought to be getting back, too. Did you want to ask me something about that man getting killed?”

I placed the file on the table, crossed my arms, and stared at him. “I want to know about the poker party.”

He made a pointed effort to maintain eye contact, but I could see his Adam’s apple working hard. “What about it?” he asked, his voice almost breaking.

“I want to know what happened besides card playing.”

“We drank a little. It was a birthday.”

“Any gifts?”

He hesitated. “There was a bottle—”

“Who from?”

His fingertips nervously brushed his chin. “I think it was Andy.”

“What did Frankie bring?”

Sweat began to appear high on his forehead. “Frankie? I’m not sure—”

I interrupted again, “I’m sorry. I should’ve asked,
who
did Frankie bring?”

He just watched me.

I leaned over so my face was inches from his. “Jim, either talk to me now or talk to Sherry tonight. Does the name Brenda Croteau ring a bell, or was your hand too good to notice her?”

Interrogations are a little like dancing with a blind date—lots of preliminary subtle body language establishing boundaries and intentions. Jim Lyon made it easy—he merely doubled over sobbing.

I watched his trembling curved back for a moment before announcing quietly but clearly, “Okay, time to come clean. I like what you tell me, this whole conversation stops here. Your choice.”

He wiped his eyes with his fingers and took a couple of deep, shuddering breaths. “I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you before. We were worried we’d get into trouble—that
I’d
get into trouble. I had the most to lose, being married and everything. They did it for me.”

“Lied, you mean?”

“Yeah. We couldn’t believe it—all you people suddenly there asking questions. It was like a nightmare. And I’d only said I’d go at the last minute. It was unbelievable.”

I kept my voice at a monotone to try to calm him down. “Was it Frankie who brought her to the party?”

“Yes. You were right. She was Don’s gift. Frankie even had her wear a red bow around her neck. I didn’t know anything about it till they walked in. I wanted to get the hell out of there as soon as I saw her, but then I thought, how would I explain it to Sherry? I was stuck.”

“Did you also figure, what the hell? And sample some of the goods?”

He looked genuinely horrified and began to fidget in his chair. “Oh, my God, no. That’s what I was worried about. I’m totally screwed now, if word gets out. There’s no fucking way anyone’s going to believe me.”

I placed a hand on his sweat-dampened shoulder. “Relax. You’re doing fine so far. Don’t fall apart on me. Tell me what happened, and in what sequence.”

He worked to control himself. “Frankie got there late, I guess on purpose, to make a big entrance, and she was like I said, wearing that bow. There was a lot of laughing and drinking and talk, and after a while, Don and her went into the bedroom down the hall.”

“And the rest of you did what?”

“We played cards and talked and drank… watched TV. Finally Don came back—”

“About when?”

“I’m not sure. After midnight, I think. I was so nervous, I sort of overdid it with the booze.”

“Okay, so Don came back.”

“Right, and then Frankie went to the bedroom to… you know.”

“How long did that last?”

“I fell asleep around then. They woke me up to play cards—I don’t know what time. The girl was gone. And the next thing that happened was you people came in asking questions about the guy who got killed by the train.”

“And you saw nothing of that?”

His eyes grew wide. “I didn’t lie there. And I swear I’m not lying now. That’s everything I know.”

“How about cooking up your cover story?”

He flushed again. “I’m sorry. That’s right. Frankie did see something through the window. Not the murder—just something he said was weird. And later, when the cops—I mean the police—were going door-to-door, we heard them coming. That’s when Frankie figured what he’d seen must’ve been pretty bad. So we came up with the all-night poker story. We didn’t know anything—Frankie told you the truth there. We didn’t see fessing up to having had a hooker would make any difference. It would just cause trouble.”

“You must’ve read about her in the paper when she was killed,” I said, not bothering to hide my contempt.

“We were scared shitless. We talked on the phone about it—about going to the police and telling them what we knew. But what
did
we know? I caught hell from Sherry as it was when I got home. This could’ve ended my marriage.” He paused and drew a long face. “Might still end it.”

I rose to my feet, finally tiring of his self-involvement. “Not unless you tell her, Jim. I’m cutting you loose. I will tell you one thing, though—it’s for her sake and the kids that I won’t blow the whistle. Your covering your own sorry butt cuts so close to interfering with a police investigation it barely shows daylight, and if I ever hear of you stepping out of line again—in any way, shape, or form—I’m going to make it my business that everyone finds out about this little conversation. Clear?”

He stood shakily, his shoulders stooped, and nodded miserably, which only made me want to kick him in the ass. “Yes, sir.”

“Get the hell out of here.”

He preceded me out of the door and disappeared. I stayed behind to slide his chair back under the table and turn off the light, and when I pulled the door shut behind me, I saw Sammie standing in the darkened viewing room, leaning against the wall, her face as still as stone.

“You been there long?”

“Long enough.”

I scratched the back of my neck. “What’re you going to do?”

“What do you think?”

I saw her point. Maintaining a love affair with a man who had kept vital evidence from the police, not to mention flat-out lied to her, would have been a little much to expect. I couldn’t have done it in her place.

“You want the rest of the day off?”

“I don’t know.”

I stepped into the small room. “Get it over with now, Sam. Go see him, clear the air, and then come over to my place later. We’ll get a pizza or something, have a few beers, and talk about what shits men can be. Gail’ll pitch in—I promise.”

She tried to smile. “Thanks, Joe. I’ll see how it goes.”

I watched her walk into the squad room, grab her coat, and leave, moving like an exhausted, shell-shocked soldier. She was possibly the best cop I’d ever worked with—committed, passionate, driven to outperform everyone around her. It almost broke my heart to see her served this way—the one time she’d taken a chance on a small bit of happiness.

GAIL, OF COURSE, HAD BEEN RIGHT.
Mark Mullen, Vermont’s speaker of the House, following his supportive and glowing speech about law and order and the Reynolds Bill, immediately set about taking the latter apart, piece by piece.

He did this in time-honored fashion, spreading the responsibility far and wide among his colleagues, vowing he was improving the Senate’s work by giving it the thorough and careful review it deserved.

At least his method was original. He pushed a resolution through the House creating a special committee—traditionally an advisory group—with full authorization to act in place of all the standing committees that would normally consider such a bill. Thus, instead of trying to manipulate several dozen people sitting on Appropriations, Judiciary, Government Ops, and the rest, Mullen simply handpicked a few representatives from each—and from both parties—and appointed them to the study committee. Their job was to analyze the bill, listen to testimony supporting and decrying it, and eventually report to the House membership for a full vote.

On the surface, it was both practical and efficient. It was also a good way for Mullen to maintain near-total control.

Once again, I was asked to Montpelier to act as an expert witness, which I only hoped I could do with total impartiality. As the months had slipped by, the law enforcement “super agency” bill had been sharply debated across the state, and my earlier desire to keep an open mind had begun to erode.

In this I was hardly alone. If nothing else, Reynolds had given birth to a genuine hot potato. In radio commentaries, newspaper editorials, and squad rooms across Vermont, this topic had been bandied around with passion and prejudice, and with little general agreement. Most interesting, however, no one had been seen rallying around the status quo. They couldn’t agree on what exactly was broken, but everyone agreed it needed fixing.

It was a custom-made void for Mark Mullen and his ambitions, whatever end strategy he might have been considering.

Mullen had made of himself a living local legend—although one whose grasp on power was at a crucial juncture. Born outside Barre forty-five years ago, the youngest of two sons of a quarryman father, he’d been elected to the House while still in his early twenties and had stayed there ever since, eventually sitting on most of the committees, and finally—though a member of the minority party that year—being elected speaker, a quirky phenomenon almost unique to Vermont, and one the Republicans had since come to rue.

At the time, however, his selection had been no surprise. An instinctive consensus builder and a genuine “people person,” Mullen paid minimal attention to party lines, orchestrating the Legislature less from the podium and more by intimate personal contact, although naturally most often to the advantage of the Democrats.

His early reign had not been without controversy—with predictable accusations of favoritism and grandstanding—but lately it had smoothed out to the point of becoming bland. His influence had begun to pall. Mullen’s creation of this special committee, instead of letting the Reynolds Bill loose among the standing committees, had struck many as the action of a man both doubtful of his old clout and transparently eager to make a big splash.

My drive to Montpelier this time was very different from before, when the snow and ice had turned the countryside into a crystal palace. Now a strong feeling of change was pervasive in the countryside—the unlocking season, as some called it, was nigh—when winter’s frozen grip began yielding to something just shy of spring.

This wouldn’t have been the case during the legislative sessions of yore. Back then, the State House had called it quits by early April, so the mostly farmer/lawmakers could return to their fields and maybe get in a little late sugaring if they were lucky or lived up north. But times had changed and The Bill, as some sorrowful legislators were calling it, had delayed things even more, so that nobody was placing bets on when they’d be going home.

But while the mood in the State House was souring, its crush of humanity had steadfastly remained the same. The hallways were as crammed with people—an inordinately large number of them in uniform—and the sense of tension was as palpable as before.

I was supposed to meet with the study committee at one but found that the schedule had gone routinely off track. So I located an old and decorous chair, tucked under the wing of one of the building’s two sweeping staircases, and prepared for a long wait.

A tall, thin, angular man wearing a suit and a tangled mop of dark hair slid into the chair next to mine—Commissioner of Public Safety David Stanton.

“Hi, Joe,” he said, leaning over to shake hands. “Long time.”

“Yup.” I gestured at the stream of people passing before us. “You pretty pleased with what you set in motion?”

Still smiling, he watched me closely. “I set in motion?”

“Reynolds wouldn’t have started all this without the governor’s blessing, and Howie wouldn’t have given it without consulting you. That makes you the logical choice for the next Secretary of Criminal Justice.”

“He consulted me, sure,” Stanton agreed coyly, ignoring my conclusion. “But this is Reynolds’s baby. Not mine.”

“Oh-oh—that mean you’re looking to jump ship?”

He laughed. “You’re worse than the news guys. I have no idea where this is headed.”

“I’m not against it heading somewhere,” I said to reassure him. “And I never expected the Legislature
not
to tie it up in knots. But I was thinking as I drove up here that the debate’s been pretty interesting—opened up a few closets a lot of people might’ve liked kept shut.”

“Like the sheriffs?”

“Like everybody—all that local control baloney. I’ve always loved how those official press releases about interagency cooperation compared to the real thing. This has ripped off some of the camouflage.”

Stanton cut me a look. “Sounding pretty cynical, there, Joe.”

I shook my head. “I’m happy it’s getting shaken up—long overdue. I just hope things don’t end up exactly where they were.”

He stared at the floor, nodding silently in agreement.