The Marble Mask (3 page)

Sammie glanced at me and raised her eyebrows. I sighed inaudibly and asked, “Exactly how did that conversation go with Stowe’s chief? Frank Auerbach? He runs a pretty tight department—well equipped, well organized. A full-service outfit.”

The pause in the conversation told me Bill got my point. “You and I have hashed this over before, Joe,” he finally said. “Our charter specifies we can initiate investigations where we see fit.” He held his hand up as I opened my mouth to respond. “Not that we’re doing that here. After the AG paved the way following the ME’s initial report this morning, I called Auerbach to introduce myself. I offered him our services in case the need should arise, nice and polite. He thanked me very much.”

Allard sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.

“He hasn’t officially accepted us?” I asked, trying to keep calm. “I thought we were already on board. That’s what I told Ed Turner in Burlington, who by now has probably spread it all over downstairs, maybe even back to Auerbach.”

He shrugged. “Look. No one’s a virgin here. The Legislature may have created us, but we’re already ancient history. It’s a brand-new session stuffed with freshmen, and so far they’ve been happy to let us hang in the wind. Every cop shop in Vermont is hoping we’ll vanish without a trace, and if the governor doesn’t hear some good news after bragging to the press this morning, that’s probably what’ll happen. We’re going to have to be a little pushy to start with, Joe, or we’re not going to survive. Auerbach’s going to need help with this. He’ll know that as soon as the ME gives him her report. All the AG and I did was make it diplomatic for him to ask for us instead of the state police. Heavy-handed, maybe—underhanded if you want—and maybe you’ll have to smooth a few feathers because of it, but at least you’ll be in business.”

I couldn’t argue with him. He was absolutely right about our shelf life. Our coexistence with other units was going to be initially bumpy in any case—either because we were untested or because we were seen as competition. We might just as well get started, show some signs of life, and try to work out the details along the way.

But if that was the plan, I had an additional problem. “Bill, as far as I know, you and I are the only two people on the VBI payroll with assigned responsibilities. Sammie here got a welcome aboard letter, as did a bunch of other people, but none of them have heard a word since. Now I know the Bureau’s supposed to have regional offices, and that Stowe and Brattleboro couldn’t be much farther apart, but if we’re going to play this like a pickup game, I’d like to select my own team—just this once. Given how disorganized things are, I don’t think it’ll bother anyone, especially if it leads to more cases.”

Allard seemed relieved by my acceptance of his backdoor strategy concerning Auerbach. “Sure,” he said. “Who do you want?”

“Sam, for one,” I told him, “and Willy Kunkle for another.”

Allard rubbed his chin with his finger. “Name rings a bell. Doesn’t he have a little attitude problem?”

Neither Sammie nor I said a word, but the question alone told me Kunkle’s name had come up in at least one context in this building.

After an awkward pause, he added, “I’m not sure what the status is on his application, to be honest. And that’s one part of the process I don’t want to fool with right now—can’t be seen playing favorites.”

I seriously doubted Willy Kunkle was anyone’s favorite, including mine, and he’d worked on my squad alongside Sammie for years. A recovering alcoholic, he’d beaten his wife before she left him over ten years ago, and he was cynical, sharp-tongued, dismissive of others, and difficult to work with. He was also smart, honest, hard-working, and an excellent cop despite his faults, which made him even harder on himself than he was on others—no small statement. No one aside from Sammie understood what I saw in Willy, or why time after time I’d gone out on a limb to save his career. There was more to it than his simply being good at his job—dozens of others were as capable, and all of them were a hell of a lot more pleasant. But I’d seen value in aiding in his redemption and been rewarded with signs of progress, not the least of which was Willie’s discreet, still largely unknown romantic pairing with Sammie. Childless and a widower, perhaps I wanted for Willy what a parent wants for a troubled but promising son. He had fought off the bottle, learned to control his physical outbursts, dealt with a bullet wound that had left him with a withered, useless left arm, and had been caught being sensitive and considerate when he thought nobody was watching.

But my leaving the Brattleboro department had threatened that evolution. My old chief, Tony Brandt, while a supportive and considerate boss, had made it clear that without my protection, Willy was a targeted man. Anticipating that, I’d already made the consideration of his VBI application a condition of my own signing on, something the commissioner had agreed to only reluctantly. I’d stressed then that all I was requesting was that the man get the same fair scrutiny we’d all received.

Allard’s reaction made me realize my request might not have been honored.

I wasn’t surprised, but I hated to think that all I’d done by helping Kunkle was to perhaps set him up for the hardest fall of all.

“Who does know what his status is?” I asked. “The commissioner?”

“He’s head of the selection committee,” Allard answered indirectly.

I nodded toward the phone on his desk. “Let’s give him a call, then.”

Bill Allard frowned. He didn’t know Willy Kunkle, as did Commissioner Stanton, but this was not playing ball, as the political vernacular had it. In one stroke, I’d picked a fight and gone over his head before our very first case was a day old—all over a man of dubious pedigree.

He made the call. Next to me, Sammie was looking as if she wanted to melt into the floor.

David Stanton didn’t look happy, either, when the three of us filed into his office one flight down five minutes later.

A tall, skinny man with a mop of thick, tangled hair, he was a keen organizational animal—smart, ambitious, and restless to make his mark. In the early blueprints of what VBI was to be but hadn’t become, Stanton had been slated for a cabinet secretary rating. His failure had dulled his interest in the whole experiment.

“What’s up?” he asked without preamble, not bothering to shake hands or greet us by name.

Allard spoke first. “Since the governor caught us flat-footed, we’re trying to cobble together a squad with minimal break-in needs.”

It was the preferred indirect approach, but I didn’t feel like wasting time any more than Stanton did. I might also have been reacting to his perfunctory tone. “I’d like Willy Kunkle.”

Bill tried softening the message. “I didn’t know the status of his application.”

Stanton kept his watchful eyes on me. “He’s in the pipeline, Joe, along with several others.”

“Maybe so, but since proper procedure’s already out the window, let’s cut corners,” I suggested, matching his stare.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea, not right out of the starting gate.”

“Why not?” I asked, anger slowly beginning to build in my chest. “When were you going to decide about him?”

Stanton’s mouth tightened slightly. “It’s not up to me alone. There’s a panel—”

“Which you bypassed to hire me,” I interrupted.

“You were a special case,” he said, giving the comment a clear double meaning. “Kunkle doesn’t fit that category.”

I turned to the door, resting my hand on the knob. “Maybe you got me wrong.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic, Joe,” he said with an exasperated sigh. “When you signed on, the deal was we consider Kunkle’s application along with everyone else’s. We’re doing that. You can’t force us to accept him—it wouldn’t be ethical.”

I laughed, the frustration of waiting around for weeks coming to a boil. “Ethical? You didn’t want him to begin with, and it’s starting to look like you’ve lost interest in VBI. If Willy really is under consideration, and not just being jerked around to keep me quiet, now would be a good time to show some good faith. Let me have him for this case on a provisional basis. Call him a consultant if you want, instead of a special agent, and make his performance a factor in his passing muster, but give the poor bastard a chance, stop treating me like some senile chump, and let the Bureau prove itself in the real world.”

Stanton scowled at me. “I made you SAC of the whole outfit, for Christ’s sake, and I’m one of the few people who
doesn’t
want the Bureau chopped off at the knees. Everyone has the highest respect for you.
You’re
the one putting a monkey wrench into the works with your obsession with this guy.”

I didn’t say a word, but I left my hand on the doorknob. He finally relented, which ironically highlighted his ambivalence about our fate, since if ever there was a time to call my bluff, it was now. “All right, you can have Kunkle—provisionally. He’s not to have VBI credentials, and once this case is over, whether he’s accepted or not, I don’t want to have this conversation again.

“And,” he added, pointing his finger at Bill Allard, “I want at least two more people of
your
choosing assigned to this, regardless of how many break-in problems it might create. They are not to be from Brattleboro or Windham County or even from the southeast corner of the state. If Kunkle’s going to be part of the equation, I want him counterbalanced with the best you can get your hands on. In fact,” he added after a brief pause, “why don’t you pull in someone from BCI as an unofficial intern? That way, Kunkle won’t be alone, it’ll help show we’re not a closed shop, and maybe word’ll leak back to the BCI rank-and-file that we’re not the threat their brass is making us out to be.”

He shifted his glare to me. “That better be acceptable, Joe, or you damn well
can
walk out that door.”

I smiled at him instead, amazed I’d gotten away with it. “Don’t worry, Dave. This won’t bite you in the ass.”

He shook his head. “The way I see it, it already has.”

· · ·

Bill Allard laughed as we shoehorned ourselves back into his office. “Christ, that was hardball. What’s with this Willy Kunkle guy?”

Sammie rolled her eyes. “If you have to ask, you obviously
don’t
know the man.”

She knew that better than most. Still, I saw the relief in her face and hoped my gambit would benefit both Willy and her.

By conventional wisdom, however, neither chicanery nor time would be kind to them. Opinionated, headstrong, and passionate, they were fated to clash more than they might commingle. Which probably should have concerned me as their boss. But I’d known them for years and had seen their focus on the job, which is no doubt why they’d remained such perennial loners so far.

There was an additional influence working on me, of course, more personal and elusive. My own years-long relationship with Gail Zigman was undergoing some adjustment, ever since we’d decided to go back to living apart and she’d taken a job in Montpelier for half of each year. We’d shared a house only briefly—and then only because she’d needed to rebuild herself after a harrowing sexual assault—but I’d grown used to the domesticity and was by nature less driven than she to climb a career ladder.

Which made nurturing Sam and Willy’s odd romance all the more instinctive.

“Willy’s definitely an acquired taste,” I explained to Bill, “but he’s a dog with a bone on something like this, and I’m used to working with him.”

Allard slid behind his desk. “So who else do you want?”

I watched him carefully. “That’s a little risky, isn’t it? Given Stanton’s marching orders.”

He allowed a thin smile, revealing a bit of what had made him so successful within the ranks of the state police. “Stanton’s a good guy—savvy at paddling his chosen waters.” He paused and then added, “But he’s not Bureau chief.”

“Nevertheless,” I said, “I don’t want to be too obvious. He did say to pick someone from outside Windham County. How ’bout Lester Spinney?”

Sammie Martens immediately laughed, reminded of Spinney’s famous sense of humor. “I didn’t know he’d joined up. I thought he was happy investigating for the Attorney General.”

“He was happy working for Kathy Bartlett,” I emphasized, “but when the AG made her VBI special prosecutor, he figured he’d tag along.”

But Bill shook his head. “Maybe later, if things start heating up, but even I know you’ve worked with Spinney before. Stanton’s bound to smell a rat. We need some relative stranger we think’ll fit your style.”

I was stumped. I knew quite a few of the approximately one thousand full-time cops in the state, but only a handful had risked joining the Bureau so far. A conservative bunch by nature, police officers were inclined to sit back and watch when politics were in motion.

“You know Paul Spraiger?” Allard asked.

“I know his boss,” I answered, “assuming he’s the Spraiger from the Burlington PD.”

“One and the same. A twelve-year veteran. He was about to be rotated back into uniform when he decided he’d gotten used to plainclothes. He’s a quiet guy, a good interrogator—has a way of making people feel comfortable. Incredibly smart but keeps it to himself. He also speaks French, which might come in handy.”

I nodded. “Sounds good. What about the BCI intern?”

This time, Allard didn’t hesitate. “Tom Shanklin. He’s in the Middlesex barracks right now—a good people person, easy to get along with, popular with the troops, and a gung-ho Green-and-Gold type, but not obnoxious. If we can turn him around to what we’re up to, he’d be a great ambassador.”

“He been with BCI long?” Sammie asked, obviously mistrustful of all the strategizing.

Bill tried putting her at ease. “Oh yeah, years. He’s worked several major cases on his own. He’ll be an asset.”

I’d heard only good of Tom Shanklin, although we’d never met. I rose to my feet. “Okay by me, and unless you feel otherwise, we might as well keep it at five total for the moment, till we know what we’re facing. You want to meet with us once we’re all assembled?”

Allard’s smile suggested otherwise. “Give you all a rousing speech? I don’t think so. You’re the field man, Joe. Run things as you see fit. Just keep me informed and let me know when you need help.”