Occam's Razor (48 page)

And pictures of Gail.

I saw her above me, straddling my hips as I lay on the floor, her eyes narrowed, her mouth open just slightly. There was a faint shimmer of sweat on her upper lip as she raised her arms slowly, smoothly, and stripped off her T-shirt.

“Joe? It’s Willy. Hang in there, pal. You croak, they’ll nail me for sure. Don’t be so God-damned self-centered.”

What a guy, I thought—always the right word at the right time. What must his parents have been like?

I tried retrieving that last image of just seconds ago, remembering only that it had been of something pleasant and warm. I was beginning to feel warm again myself, in fact. At long last.

“Won’t be too much longer,” Willy resumed. “They say the storm’s almost over—at least enough to try another sortie. Give us some kind of signal, though, will you? This playing coy shit is driving me nuts.”

He’d always been an impatient man—always in a hurry and with nowhere to go. Not like Sammie, for example, equally driven but headed straight up the professional ladder.

Gail was ambitious, too, although a lot more complicated—one of the reasons we no longer lived together. Not that the love could be diminished—no matter the test.

I furrowed my brow, or thought I did. Sam and Willy and Gail and I were becoming blurred in my mind. Maybe there were similarities I’d never glimpsed before—he and I sort of stuck in our ways, the two women either using us as anchors, or fighting the pull of our inertia.

Surely there had to be more to it than that.

The radio spoke again, sounding like the last man to enter a noisy, crowded room—too far off to be understood. And I had too much to ponder anyway.

Let it go, I thought. Let me be.

Over the years, Archer Mayor has been a photographer, teacher, historian, scholarly editor, feature writer, travel writer, lab technician, political advance man, medical illustrator, newspaper writer, history researcher, publications consultant, constable, and EMT/firefighter. He is also half Argentine, speaks two languages, and has lived in several countries on two continents.

All of which makes makes him restless, curious, unemployable, or all three. Whatever he is, it’s clearly not cured, since he’s currently a novelist, a death investigator for Vermont’s medical examiner, and a police officer.

Mayor has been producing the Joe Gunther novels since 1988, some of which have made the
TEN BEST
or
MOST NOTABLE
lists of the Los Angeles and the New York Times. Mayor has also received the New England Booksellers Association book award for fiction.

Find him online at
www.ArcherMayor.com

Open Season
Borderlines
Scent of Evil
The Skeleton’s Knee
Fruits of the Poisonous Tree
The Dark Root
The Ragman’s Memory
Bellows Falls
The Disposable Man
Occam’s Razor
The Marble Mask
Tucker Peak
The Sniper’s Wife
Gatekeeper
The Surrogate Thief
St. Albans Fire
The Second Mouse
Chat
The Catch
The Price of Malice
Red Herring
Tag Man
Paradise City

…And Don’t Miss

By
New York Times
Bestselling Author Archer Mayor
Out in October 2012, from St. Martin’s Press

Find Archer online at:
www.ArcherMayor.com

Preorder soon at 
www.us.macmillan.com

This digital edition (v1.11) of
Occam’s Razor
was published by MarchMedia in 2013.

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Copyright © 2012 by Archer Mayor.

ISBN: 978-1-939767-09-7

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Lt. Joe Gunther of the Brattleboro, Vermont police force has a serious problem: in a community where a decade could pass without a single murder, the body count is suddenly mounting. Innocent citizens are being killed—and others set-up—seemingly orchestrated by a mysterious ski-masked man. Signs suggest that a three year-old murder trial might lie at the heart of things, but it’s a case that many in the department would prefer remained closed. A man of quiet integrity, Lt. Gunther knows that he must pursue the case to its conclusion, wherever it leads.

Seconded to the State’s Attorney’s office, Lt. Joe Gunther is in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom investigating a minor embezzling case. It’s a pleasant distraction, and a chance to reconnect with old friends, but when a house fire reveals itself to be arson, compounded by murder, Gunther can’t help but investigate. Suddenly, he finds himself enmeshed in a web of animosity between put-upon townspeople, the state police, angry parents and members of a reclusive sect. Murder follows murder, yet no one seems to be telling Gunther the whole truth—not even his childhood friends—and truth is what he desperately needs if he’s to stop the killings.

When the body of a fast-living young stockbroker is found in a shallow grave, suspicion first falls on a cuckolded policeman. Lt. Joe Gunther investigates the increasingly bizarre details of the crime, but finds that he’s too far behind events to prevent a second murder. Indeed, whoever is responsible always seems to be a few steps ahead, as if there’s a leak on the force. Sweltering August heat does nothing to calm the increasingly agitated town selectmen, who demand results.

When a reclusive market gardener’s death proves to stem from a 20 year-old bullet wound, Lt. Joe Gunther is presented with a very cold homicide to solve. But who was the victim exactly? A deeply private man eking out an ascetic existence from a hardscrabble mountain field, Abraham Fuller was virtually unknown to his neighbors, in the manner of someone pursuing more than mere solitude. The discovery of a duffle of unmarked bills and a body buried in the garden patch suggests that Fuller had motives beyond misanthropy. Nor is it such a cold case either, as someone seems willing to kill to ensure that old secrets remain buried.

Gail Zigman, town selectwoman and Joe Gunther’s companion of many years, is raped, and the detective finds himself caught between the media, local politicians, and a network of well-meaning victims’ rights advocates as he tries to put his own feelings aside and follow the trail of evidence.