The trip was the exact opposite of my drive over: windy, freezing, lurching, and noisy. I held on for dear life, seeing little beyond the hairy nape of Dick’s neck, feeling my face and hand going numb and the muscles in my back and legs beginning to spasm as I unsuccessfully tried to anticipate which way to lean and when to brace for a bump. By the time we came to a sudden, sliding stop, I felt like simply falling into the snow and asking someone to cover me up.
Instead, I was grabbed under the right armpit and hauled to my feet, where I found myself staring into Linda Bettina’s face. “It’s over here,” was her greeting.
I followed her as best I could, regaining my land legs and trying not to stumble in the thick snow. Ahead of us, surrounded by tall, somber trees as if cupped in a pair of hands, was a pile of red embers, against which human shadows moved back and forth like black specters. In the distance was a wide, featureless opening, flat and opal pale in the moonlight, which I took to be the frozen pond.
Linda stopped as we entered the warm air bubble engulfing the glowing remnants of the pumphouse. She pointed at a large, round man in a white fire coat who was giving orders to a group of others.
“That’s the fire chief, if you want to talk to him.”
“He know what started it?”
“He just showed up with his crew and put it out.”
I looked around as someone started a generator and ignited a ring of bright lights on tripods.
“And destroyed any chance of finding tracks,” I said half to myself.
“Wouldn’t have been any anyhow,” Linda said. “It’s a construction site—
was
a construction site. A dozen guys have been stomping around here for weeks. Too bad, too—I’ve really been cracking the whip on this project. We were about to get this done two months ahead of schedule.”
“Who reported it?” I asked.
“Snowmakers saw the glow. We hit it right off with water from some portable snow guns and called the fire department to back us up. Didn’t make any difference. It was going full blast from the start.” She turned to face me. “You smell anything?”
I took my time before responding, sniffing carefully. “Gas?”
“That’s what I think—this was torched.”
“Did the snowmakers notice anyone or anything unusual when they first arrived?”
She shook her head. “Nope. Same as the dye job on the other pond, the generator sabotage, the water main break, and the chairlift accident, not to mention all the other shit that’s been going on. Whoever’s doing this is luckier than hell.”
I didn’t voice the other obvious possibility of it being an employee.
“Linda?”
We both turned as Phil McNally loomed into the light, squinting slightly, stopping in his tracks as he recognized me. “Oh. Are you all right?”
Linda looked at me more closely. “What’s wrong with you? Break an arm?”
“Dog bit it,” I explained, realizing just how isolated this bunch could be in their closed-off world. As far as I knew, no paper or radio or TV station in the state had failed to run the story, and yet nobody here seemed to know about it.
Nor were they particularly interested, since both Linda and Phil went back to staring at the remains of the pumphouse.
“TPL?” McNally asked.
“We don’t know,” Linda told him, jerking a gloved thumb at me. “That’s why I called him.”
He passed a hand across his neck. “Great, one damn thing after another. This morning, somebody chained about eight snowmobiles together—took an hour to untangle them. I guess I messed up big time being too friendly with those guys.”
“They may not have done this,” I suggested.
They looked at me.
“You kidding?” McNally asked. “It’s perfect for them—nobody hurt, and the whole pump project delayed for months, not to mention the money we already spent on pumps that have nowhere to live now. I’ll have to tell the manufacturer to hang on to them and probably end up paying a storage fee to boot. Christ. What next?”
It was an interesting question, and one I wanted answered before it caught me by surprise.
· · ·
My next meeting with Roger Betts didn’t have to take place in a clandestine motel. Phone calls by Phil McNally to my boss had forced the TPL case off the back burner, if only briefly, and the fire the night before now made it reasonable for me to invite him to my office in Brattleboro.
I did, however, want Gail in attendance, as before, hoping her presence would show how I wanted us all to work together against a common foe.
They arrived as a couple, Gail having picked Betts up at Tucker Peak on her way in, and entered the office chatting amiably.
The others were out, so the office was ours. I dragged two chairs across the room, and we all sat in a circle, like three card players in search of a table.
“Roger,” I began, “I really appreciate your coming down. I know it’s a hassle with everything you’ve got going.”
“Not at all,” he countered, his voice once again reminiscent of some old-world gentleman. “I understand entirely. You must have questions concerning the fire.”
I nodded. “True enough. But you should know that the ground rules are a little different this time. We’re no longer off the record, and I am less inclined to settle for a pledge of cooperation from you. Things are getting out of hand.”
“I agree entirely,” he said, to my surprise. “These events are not reflecting well on us either. I am scheduled to meet with Mr. McNally in two hours, and I suspect that will not go well.”
“I saw him last night,” I admitted. “He ain’t happy.”
I reached for a file on my desk and opened it in my lap. “Which leads me to the point of this meeting. Last time you said you feared one or more people within your ranks might be doing these things, but you had no names to suggest. This time I have some names, and I’d like you to react to them.”
He studied me passively for several seconds before saying, “That may not be ground I wish to tread.”
“Maybe so,” I agreed, pulling out a single sheet of paper and handing it to him. “Nevertheless. Look at them first. Then we can debate.”
The names included the three Gail had chosen earlier from Snuffy’s list, along with others we’d added as a result of our own research. There were eleven overall.
Roger Betts took his time, presumably pausing at one name or another and running it through his mind. Several times he gazed out the window before continuing.
Finally, he put the sheet down and looked at me. “What are you asking of me?”
“You know the dates and approximate times of each event that took place at the mountain. They’re listed at the bottom of that sheet if you don’t. What I’m asking is two questions: Do any of those names stick out as people we should check out? And do certain activities of any of them correspond to when the events occurred? I’m looking for unexplained absences, generally odd behavior, reactions or the lack thereof when news of these things broke out—you name it.”
He thought for a while and finally shook his head regretfully. “I am sorry. I don’t feel I can do that. To have told you of my misgivings was a moral duty, to put my finger on an actual individual with no proof beyond a hunch would be inappropriate and careless.”
“If you’re being truthful,” I told him, “which I choose to believe, that tells me
a
, that you do have a hunch, and
b
, that you didn’t see any of these people fitting the profile I outlined, at least not consistently.”
He smiled thinly. “Correct on both counts, although I have to admit that
b
is only true because I don’t watch my colleagues like a den mother. We work shifts and we handle various assignments. Several days may go by without my seeing any of them.” He waved his hand toward the empty office around us. “This is most likely true for you, too.”
I leaned forward in my chair to emphasize my seriousness, hoping he wouldn’t see my irritation. “If you have any knowledge that might help us solve these crimes, and you don’t share it with us, it could put you and your organization in legal hot water, cost you a bundle, distract you from your purpose, and open the door to a real public relations black eye.”
He pursed his lips and glanced down at the list. “Perhaps you could give me the opportunity to investigate a little on my own?”
I sat back. “Fair enough, but we’re going to keep pushing from our end, too.”
I escorted them to the door, catching Gail’s elbow so she’d stay back a moment. She nodded to Betts. “You go ahead. I’ll be right there.”
We watched him walk down the hallway, his white hair haloed by the light from the window beyond him, and enter the stairwell.
“Be careful what you say right now,” Gail warned me before I opened my mouth. “I have loyalties running both ways here.”
“I understand that,” I conceded. “But he raised the red flag first on this. I’m just hoping he’ll see it through to the end. Whatever he says won’t be enough to bring charges against anyone, that much is pretty clear. I’m only looking for a little guidance. We can waste a lot of time and money and put everybody in TPL under the microscope, or he can help us, give that same attention to a select few, and maybe save a life—don’t forget that woman in the chairlift almost died. Either way, the same guy will end up in the limelight eventually. I don’t see this as the moral dilemma he does.”
She kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll see what I can do.”
· · ·
Spinney had set up two long tables in the middle of the room and covered them with dozens of differently colored file folders, each one labeled with someone’s last name. He and I were alone in the office.
“Okay. Red names are primaries, like Marty Gagnon, Richie, Jorja, the TPL crowd, and all the homeowners that were either known to have been robbed, or who appeared on that list we found in Richie’s apartment in Dover. Blue names are secondaries, mostly people only associated with the first group but with interesting wrinkles to their makeup, like an old rap sheet.” He pointed to one. “Shayla Rossi, for example, and a bunch of other folks who used to run with either Richie, Jorja, or Marty. Finally, we have the yellows, made up of cleaning people, caretakers, co-workers, etcetera, none of whom appear to be involved in all this, but who might have something to offer anyhow, such as being witnesses to events they maybe didn’t understand at the time.”
“Okay.” I nodded, waiting for more, standing beside him and considering what amounted to hundreds of hours of research.
“In the red category,” he continued, “we still have a few gaps among the homeowners. Turns out a lot of condos belong to people who’ve never set foot in Vermont and just keep them as investments and as sources of revenue through timesharing leases arranged through the resort.”
“Tucker Peak handles all that?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s apparently pretty typical. The places are rented out on a forty-sixty basis, with the resort getting forty percent for management and maintenance—things like arranging leases, handling custodial care, and seeing to any necessary repairs, as well as supplying electrical, plumbing, and cable services. Also, snow removal in winter and lawn care the rest of the time.”
“Pretty big operation. They have a separate division handling that?” I asked.
“No. It comes under Conan Gorenstein’s responsibilities—the CFO. I guess once you’ve got it all computerized, it’s not that bad. At least that’s what I was told. They have whole staffs handling it at the larger mountains, but I guess, so far, they haven’t seen the need here.”
“You dug up anything interesting among the owners or renters?”
He smiled and raised his eyebrows. “You bet—no great surprise, I guess, but they turned out to be the best part of the whole deal. The more we dug, the more I thought of inviting any one of a half-dozen federal agencies to join in, starting with the IRS. We came across multilayered corporations, wives and kids owning things I doubt they even know about, PO box addresses by the handful in places like Delaware and abroad, and Christ knows how many lists of officers that may or may not be alive and kicking. It was almost weird to come across a Mr. and Mrs. Jones or Smith who just had a condo and a home in the flatlands and nothing else. Our old pal William Manning, for example, looks as crooked as a dog’s hind leg, he’s got so many irons in the fire.”
Unfortunately, I could see the bad news coming. “But nothing connecting to Marty’s B-and-E operation.”
He surprised me then. “I’m not so sure. Nothing that slaps you in the face, that’s true. But there are a couple of things we could go after.” He leaned across the table and plucked a folder from its midst. “Smallest nibbles first—remember when we did the preliminary go-round after finding Richie’s secret paperwork, when we talked to everyone on the target list? At least one of them said he’d noticed something missing, along with a broken window, but hadn’t thought he might’ve been robbed till we suggested it.”
I remembered what Willy had thought of the man. “Yeah.”
“Well, one reason he was so dense was that he was used to finding stuff damaged or missing, even when the place hadn’t been leased out during his absence.”
I looked at him carefully. “What?”
“People were in his place when it wasn’t being rented, more than once. He thought it was the caretaker or maybe some of the resort staff taking advantage of an empty house to screw around a little, have a party or something. He said it hadn’t bothered him because he’d come from a blue-collar background himself and could sympathize with a few folks wanting a piece of the rich life. He told me it had never been too bad and that he’d chosen not to report it.”
Lester replaced the folder onto the table. “There was something about this that caught my eye—I mean, it is kind of weird. So once I got a list of dates from the homeowner, I went to his neighbors, to find out if they’d seen or heard any activity next door when the place was supposed to be empty. They had, but nothing like the guy had thought. It hadn’t been rowdy employees having a good time on the sly, it had been what looked like regular renters: people with cars and skis and kids and what-have-you spending a few days on vacation.”