Presumption of Guilt (11 page)

“Rich?”

“Not BB's kind of rich. That's crazy. But Johnny did fine.”

“How did your dad and Johnny get along?”

“Fine. They were buddies.”

“Were there others?”

Greg gazed into the distance, trying to recall. “Jimmy Stringer was one of them, and a guy named Carlo. Don't know his last name.”

“Anyone else?” Willy pressed him.

“That's pretty much all I know. Dad was a popular guy, but names…?”

“Tell me about Stringer. He keeps coming up.”

Greg smiled slightly. “It's probably that last name—sounds like a kid's book. I don't know. My dad liked him well enough, but he never paid much attention to me—not like BB. He seemed kind of rough. I think my spider sense told me he could be mean.”

“You ever witness that side of him?”

“Nope. It was just a feeling. You know what they're worth.”

“A lot, sometimes,” Willy told him. This brought him around to one of the primary reasons he'd come here.

“Greg, let's go back to when your parents were having their problems. I understand you felt guilty—that you were to blame somehow, even though you weren't. I get that. But you told me how big a presence Hank was in your life. How he filled the room, so to speak. That's a big hole to leave behind. How did you feel when he moved out?”

Mitchell's eyes wandered to the view beyond the deck. “It's hard to separate how I felt then to later. I guess numb. And lost. I was pretty confused.”

“How'd you feel about the old man's vanishing act?”

“Hurt. Angry. And—again—confused. Julie's reaction didn't help. She wigged out—smashing stuff and throwing fits. She started hitting people, too.”

“What was her relationship like with your father?”

“Cool,” Greg replied. “Like mine. He was a good dad—read to us, played ball, went on hikes. All the dad stuff.”

Willy waited for more, but that was it. He asked, “Who do you think did him in?”

Greg stared at him. “How would I know?”

“Kids know all sorts of things,” Willy said.

The other man blinked a couple of times before resuming his contemplation of the scenery.

“You're not telling me something,” Willy told him.

“I told you everything.”

Willy saw Greg's expression harden. “Your life went into the toilet after your dad left,” he said. “And here you are, decades later, doing no better. At that time, your mom stayed the course, money wasn't a problem, you had a roof over your head. Children have one of their parents walk out on them all the time. It may mess with their heads a little, crank 'em up and make 'em act out. But it doesn't usually do what it did to you.”

“Guess I'm special that way,” Greg said tersely.

Willy was quiet again. But this time, Greg Mitchell had reached his limit. In the end, Willy rose, left his business card on the table, and left without saying another word.

But he was convinced there was more to be said—what it was, and who would utter it, remained to be seen.

 

CHAPTER NINE

Another night, a different house, and Sally Kravitz was still reliving a teenager's excitement about her inaugural outing, twenty-four hours earlier. That place had been empty, like this one, and her father—whom she always called Dan—had disconnected the alarm beforehand. But the adrenaline rush of going from room to room, feeling the presence of occupants who had stepped out for the evening, had been addicting. She'd loved it.

And it hadn't been a pointless ramble. Dan had made it a lesson of component parts—how to move, what to look and listen for, what could be touched and what was best avoided. He was wonderful—patient, supportive, even funny when she'd needed it.

Just as important for her, it also cast a light onto her father's tightly controlled personality. In contrast to their currently gloomy surroundings, he had blossomed before her—his step becoming quick, his mood playful, his focus fully engaged. He'd no longer been the social enigma who spoke like a scholar to her and to others in monosyllabic grunts. In the midst of someone else's environment, and the blackness of night, he'd ironically ceased to be invisible and restrained. He'd moved decisively, smoothly, and as quietly as a cat. He'd gone through closets, cabinets, drawers, and desks; he'd moved items about, opening them for examination, going through their contents. And yet, when he finished—with her watching every motion—everything appeared as it had before. She could have sworn that not even the dust had been disturbed. Dan had made her think of an artist in peak form. If her father had shucked off his overalls and taken flight like Mikhail Baryshnikov, Sally Kravitz couldn't have been more surprised or charmed.

And now, here they were again, across town, breaching the envelope of another oversized, luxurious home.

Because that was Dan's practice: He pursued only high-end houses, never removed conventional valuables, and always made sure to pause long enough to fully enjoy his theft of others' presumed privacy.

Also, when not tutoring Sally, he only broke into homes in which the occupants were present and sleeping. That last bit had led to the hubris of leaving Post-its, which, he'd since admitted, he came to rue as a mistake. As you push at the edges, he'd counseled her, never fall prey to overconfidence.

True, he hadn't actually suffered as a result, thanks to Willy, for whom he'd been an informant for years. Kunkle hadn't known of Dan's secret back then, of course, but he'd always valued Dan's being so well informed.

Which he was, even if it wasn't just knowledge that he sought. He collected information, and with it, he served Willy Kunkle. But he also garnered a tidy income via insider trading. He was good with computers, comfortable reading financial records—sitting late at night at other people's desks—and happy to later make stock choices and investments based on what he'd learned.

Sally didn't know the intimate details of that, or see herself as the Artful Dodger to her father's Fagin. To her, Dan better represented Robin Hood, with the additional rationalization that he merely stole data and did no one any harm. Her own ambitions for joining him were more emotional. Put simply, she wanted to know Dan Kravitz in his heart. Bonding with him at his happiest seemed the best means to achieve it.

The fringe benefit, she was now happily finding out, was discovering not only how good she was at acquiring his set of skills, but also how much fun it was to do.

Tonight, they were in West B, on Orchard Street, predictably not far from the country club. The house, as was often the case, had begun life humbly enough, a century and a half earlier, probably as a farmer's home. That was before the industrial revolution, the growth of urbanization, and the sprawling of suburbia—all of which had transformed this building from shelter to status symbol. As a result, a once functional home had become a clapboarded, manicured mansion, tricked up with dark green shutters, entryway roofs and quaint weathervanes, bricked walkways, a nearby tennis court, and the obligatory, seldom-used Jacuzzi.

It was a foreign world to Sally, who'd spent her life following Dan from pillar to post around town, once even—for a while—calling a converted school bus home. Dan, for all his education and secret funds, was a man who lived upon the earth as a fog lingers among trees. He drifted—watching, absorbing, and learning—and she'd adapted to drifting with him. Moving attentively from room to room in this house so thick with possessions was like roaming through a museum to her—interesting and informative, but in the long run, alien from her own reality. Thanks to Dan, Sally's life had become the study of humanity's joys and sorrows, generosity and mean-spiritedness, and finally, its ability to endure—not the practice of keeping score with baubles.

Her inaugural wanderings through these houses were therefore extensions of that homeschooling—another way to palpate society's heartbeat from the inside. They were autopsies of a sort, conducted out of sight and in private, dedicated to enlightenment.

They were also scary, and the most exciting aspect of her education so far.

*   *   *

The textbook ideal for law enforcement field interviews is to put two investigators onto each assignment. It's safer, better for later corroboration, and allows the two cops to compare notes and buddy up if the interviewee proves a tough nut to crack.

In rural policing, there wasn't much opportunity for the ideal. There weren't enough people, not enough money, and too much territory to cover. Teams of two simply weren't practical.

There were exceptions. When the person of interest had proved dangerous in the past, or when there were several people to be interviewed at once, budget and manpower concerns were overridden.

Which explained why Sam and Lester were sharing a car late that afternoon. Following a discussion on best approaches, they'd chosen to tag-team Jimmy Stringer and Carlo Fuentes at the same time, in the same place.

Fair to say, it was the location of that place that had prompted the strategy. Lester had been told by the Brattleboro PD's patrol division that, even decades later, the two men remained best friends, and had maintained a habit of regularly hanging out together, five days a week—bonded by habit, televised sports, and beer. Fuentes was the semiretired co-owner of a downtown watering hole, where Stringer might as well have had a brass plaque attached to his favorite stool.

Why not, the two detectives had reasoned, approach the two in their comfort zone, although early enough to find them sober?

It was dark when the cops entered, despite it being shortly after noon, and following the bright sunshine outside, they had to stop just inside the door and adjust to the gloom.

“Come on in,” a man's voice called out from the back of the cave, followed by the laughing recommendation, “Walk straight ahead. When you're about to bump into your first chair, you'll just be able to see it. Trust me.”

Lester was game, and quickly discovered that about ten feet in, the soft neon glow did begin asserting itself. He made out two men by the row of taps—one seated, and one tending on the far side.

“Gentlemen,” he said, Sam following from close behind. “How're you doing today?”

“Feeling no pain,” the bartender confessed. “What can we do for you? It can't be a drink—you two look too fancy for that, unless it's turned into a bad day at the office.”

By this time, what lighting there was had allowed the newcomers to take in their surroundings. Not that there was much to see. The tavern was one of Brattleboro's older such establishments—stolid, static, and resistant to trendiness. It was strictly working-class, complete with a minimalist décor of stacked beer cans, stained posters, and grimy neon signs—along with a few battered, scarred, and much-repaired furnishings. Aside from the two before them, the room was empty.

“Thin crowd,” Spinney commented, reaching the bar and pulling out a couple of stools.

The barkeep smiled. “It is now. Come back later—then we're good till closing.”

“Good to know,” Lester said, noticing that both men had barely glanced at him, preferring instead his far more attractive partner. Sam had placed her canvas bag on the bar and was rummaging around inside it.

Lester revealed his badge. “Lester Spinney, gents. This is Samantha Martens. We're from the VBI.”

The bartender reached over to shake hands. “Carlo Fuentes. I thought you looked out of place. Have I got a nose, or what?”

The other man said guardedly, “Yeah, you got one of those.”

Lester turned to face him, hand extended. “And you are?”

“I gotta answer that?”

Spinney laughed, unfazed. “Yep, you do. But I can help. Jimmy Stringer, am I right?”

“If you knew, what d'ya ask for?” Put in an awkward position by Lester's refusal to drop his hand, Stringer gave it a quick and reluctant shake.

“What's on your mind, officers?” the friendlier Fuentes asked.

Sam spoke for the first time, the recorder she'd been searching for in hand. “A name from the distant past,” she said, matching her friendly tone to Lester's, despite her instinctive distaste for a couple of men who seemed convinced that her face had slipped to the center of her chest. “Hank Mitchell.”

Stringer and Fuentes each reacted with surprise. “Hank?” Stringer said first. “What the fuck you care 'bout him? He's been gone like half a century.”

Sam hit Record on her machine and placed it on the bar. “You don't mind if I record this, do you? Saves on getting the details wrong.”

“Sure I mind,” Stringer predictably shot back.

But Fuentes overrode him. “Oh, for Chrissake, Jimmy. Lighten up.” He gave a wide smile to Sam and nodded. “You go ahead.”

“Mr. Stringer?” she asked.

“Yeah,” was the answer.

For the record, therefore, Sam quickly stated the time, date, and location of the conversation, along with who was present. She also inquired of both men if they'd been drinking enough to be inebriated, which they both vehemently denied. This last was a frequently awkward formality, ignored by many cops. More often than not, however, Sam had reaped the rewards in court later.

Fuentes remained affable through it all. “Why you wanna know 'bout Hank?”

“You knew him back when?” Lester asked.

“Sure. We all did. He was one of us.”

Sam kept the mood going. “How so?”

Jimmy lifted the beer bottle before him. “That's how.”

“Drinking buddies?”

“That we were,” Carlo confirmed, adding, “Jimmy and I are the only two left.”

“The rest all dead?” Lester asked, surprised.

“Might as well be,” Jimmy said unhappily.

“No,” his friend corrected him. “They moved on. Well, some of them died, for sure. Tom Capsen turned toes up a month ago. But BB's still around.”