“And falling revenues,” McNally added. “I got this morning’s figures from Conan—ticket sales are nosediving.”
“You think an employee might be behind the sabotage?” I asked her.
“Despite the fact I still work here,” she said, “I’m not a total fool. Who else is going to know how to mess with that equipment? A snow bunny?”
“Could be an ex-employee,” I suggested, “or someone with eyes in his head, a basic mechanical ability, and the opportunity to get around when no one’s watching.”
McNally had other priorities. “I suppose asking you to be discreet is a waste of time?” It wasn’t really a question.
“It’s not my primary concern,” I admitted, “but what with the protesters and the deputies going at it these last few days, people have at least gotten used to seeing cops around.”
“Sheriff’s deputies aren’t investigators hassling everyone they meet,” Linda said.
I stood up and walked to the door. “We’ll try to target who we talk to. You could both help us by giving this some thought—especially you, Linda. You know everyone on this mountain. You’ve shared their employment records with a couple of my men, which is much appreciated, but it’s more about how they interact with each other and with you folks that’ll reveal what they’re capable of. Like your reaction to Richie Lane—you obviously knew he was warped. If you can think of others like him that we should focus on, it’d be a big help and would get us off the mountain faster.”
She wasn’t happy with the idea, but I’d used the right bait. “For that, I’ll do what I can.”
I opened the door and stepped into the hallway. “That’s all I ask.”
· · ·
Sammie Martens lived in an enormous studio apartment just down the street from the Municipal Building in Brattleboro. There are quite a number of these places in town—old ballrooms, concert halls, and meeting rooms—high-ceilinged, wood-floored, with huge windows overlooking the Connecticut River and the railroad tracks on one side and the steady activity of Main Street on the other. None of them are used for their original purpose, and some of those purposes have been lost over the years, leaving rooms as tantalizing and inexplicable as catacombs found deep underground.
But they aren’t all such wonderful places to live. Often on the top floors of the ancient, red-brick behemoths that make the heart of Brattleboro look like some gritty industrial mill town fringing Boston, many of these apartments are drafty walk-ups. They’re poorly wired, hard to heat, and equipped with minimal plumbing. They also suffer from splintery floors, sagging ceilings, and single-pane windows that rattle like rocks in a can on windy wintry days and whenever the trains pass by.
Sammie’s occupied a middle range, mostly because she’d put a lot of effort and money into fixing it up, much to her landlord’s heightening suspicions. She’d clustered her life in modules throughout its vast space: gym equipment in one spot, sofas and chairs in another, a TV and stereo entertainment area. Her salary precluded anything very fancy—I knew for a fact that she’d furnished it largely from yard sales—and the final result was less Manhattan shabby-chic, and more duct-tape-and-wire livable. But it was her own, had been for years, and as far as I knew, was the only place she could retreat to when things got tough.
As I guessed they might be now. I’d seen her expression when Willy had made that Blondie crack and figured it might be a good time to continue the conversation we’d begun in the alleyway outside the Butte.
I knew she’d be here—and be alone. Lester had told me she’d gone straight home after our meeting at the hospital, and I’d double-checked on Willy’s whereabouts on my own before coming over. I was surprised, however, to find her wearing only a bathrobe when she answered the door, her head swathed in a towel turban. It was barely six p.m.
I also noticed she looked terribly sad, which unfortunately didn’t surprise me. “I’m sorry, Sammie. This a bad time?”
She smiled, barely. “Just got out of the shower.” She patted her engulfed head. “Had to touch up the Swedish look before I head back to the mountain—didn’t want to blow my cover. Come on in.”
I followed her into the apartment, once more awed by how it made me feel like a mouse at the bottom of a bucket. My place was the exact opposite of this: a small, low-ceilinged, multi-roomed dwelling with its succession of hideaways, all linked by doorways and short, narrow corridors. I felt impermanent here, as if someone might come by, pack me up, and mail me to some unknown address.
“Coffee?” she asked, not bothering to look back, heading across the symphonically creaking floor toward the kitchen lining one wall.
“Sure. Thanks.” I followed her and sat on a stool to one side. “How’re you doin’?”
She kept busy, collecting mugs from a cabinet, milk from the fridge, not making eye contact. “Fine.”
“I’m sorry about Willy.”
She paused in midmotion, just for a second, before turning the heat on under the kettle. “What about him?”
I pointedly didn’t answer.
The silence stretched until I could almost hear it vibrate. Then she turned to me, her eyes pleading, and said, “Why’s he such a bastard?”
I thought about that for a moment, wanting to get it right. “Because he’s scared.”
“I don’t push,” she burst out, smacking her hand on the counter. “I don’t ask him questions he doesn’t want to hear, I don’t ask him to do things he doesn’t want to do. I bend over backwards not to box him in. What’s he got to be scared of?”
I shook my head slightly. “What attracts you to him?” I asked.
She looked at me, startled.
I rephrased the question. “Why do you hang out with him?”
She rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know. Why does anyone stay with anyone else?”
“Is it pity?”
She flushed. “No. He would hate that. And he doesn’t need it… I guess… I think it’s just the opposite. I mean, I know he’s a pain in everybody’s butt, but he tells the truth—always. He’s the most honest man I ever met. He’ll risk everything for that—hurting people’s feelings, losing them altogether. It’s like a religion.”
“Pretty gratuitous sometimes. Not everyone needs to know the truth.”
She sighed. “I know. And I know it’s mixed in with other stuff, too. All the sarcasm, the insecurity… that goddamn arm.”
“The badge of the crippled man?”
She smiled and shook her head. “You should know. You’re always pulling his fat from the fire. I should be grilling you. Why do you bother?”
Why indeed? I wondered. “I don’t do it to save him.”
“Wouldn’t he crash and burn without you?” she challenged me.
“Maybe… probably,” I conceded. “But I think it’s more so I can see him save himself someday. I always thought that might be possible.”
“Did you know he’s an artist?” she asked abruptly.
“I know he’d have a fit if he heard us talking about it. He damn near killed me when I found out. But that’s what I meant. He’s got that in him, like a gift given to someone nobody thinks deserves it, including the someone himself.”
Her eyes widened. “You figure that’s it?”
I reiterated what I’d told her earlier. “What do you think he sees when he looks in the mirror, Sam? A recovering alcoholic, a combat vet who worked behind the lines doing things I don’t want to know about, a wife-beater, a pariah, a physical, social, and emotional cripple. So, he tells the truth whatever the cost, he draws the beauty around him he won’t acknowledge in public, and he has you in his life, a stroke of luck he can’t believe and won’t trust. What do you think set him off about the blonde hair and the ski instructor gig?”
She considered that for a few seconds. “I thought it was jealousy at first. The ‘beautiful people’ thing he’s always ranting about. Now I’m not so sure.”
“Why not?” I asked, wanting her to hear her own answer.
She fiddled a bit with the cups, spooning in some instant coffee in preparation for the hot water. Finally, she admitted, “I started thinking maybe he was right—I was getting off on it, the glamour of it. He wasn’t jealous about me and other men; he was ticked off at the phoniness that I seemed to be liking.”
“He told you that?”
She ducked her head and placed both palms flat on the counter’s surface before her, as if suddenly exhausted. “No. That’s what wears me out. I just
think
that’s what he feels. He does that to everyone, puts the burden on us to figure him out. And then, it’s like we have to paint the best picture possible of him, or it’ll look like we’re the creeps. It’s not fair.”
I reached out and squeezed her hand. She slid over so I could drape my arm across her shoulders. “Sammie, it’s only unfair if you make it all your responsibility. He’s got to carry some of the weight, too. Feed him some of that honesty back.”
“He runs when I try that.”
“He runs to think. He always has. Then he comes back. Why do you think he was attracted to you in the first place?”
She sighed so deeply her entire body shuddered. “He likes you a lot.”
I laughed. “Christ. Let’s hope I don’t have enemies.” I hugged her once and then turned the heat off under the boiling water. “I like him, too, God knows why. Way down, he’s got things to offer, I don’t mind carrying some of his load in the meantime.”
I looked her straight in the eyes. “But only as long as he shows signs of making an effort, and only as long as you think it’s worth your time. Okay?”
She smiled and kissed me on the cheek. “Yeah. Thanks, boss.”
A VISITOR’S FIRST IMPRESSION OF WEST DOVER, VERMONT,
is what its residents struggle with most—it looks like a commercial strip, lining both sides of Route 100, that caters solely to the tourist trade and functions only as an extension of the Mount Snow ski area. It’s neither fair nor accurate. West Dover’s true identity extends far beyond that narrow corridor and predates all the commerce with a heritage as traditional and sturdy as any other more picturesque Vermont community. But the town’s focal point is in fact an unattractive asphalt ribbon jammed with bars, eateries, shops, and gas stations. To make matters worse, on a fun-filled Saturday night, many of the more action-oriented tourist attractions keep the diminutive police department both busy and proficient. If ever I were to recommend a good police cadet training site for processing drunks, the Dover PD would definitely make the list.
Unfortunately, this mirrors a dilemma faced by many towns across the state—what to do when forced to choose between a sense of identity in a marginal economy, and caving in to the lure of the dollar. And it can be a struggle. To choose the former in Vermont is often to be relegated to a pinprick on a map, a quaint and historical relic groping for some way to keep alive. The legislature fiddles with controversial methods of spreading the wealth more evenly, but to have a Mount Snow within reach of the local tax assessors can often mean lifeblood.
If at a cost.
Richie Lane had taken advantage of West Dover’s contradictory self-image to disappear amid its many low-cost, low-profile, no-questions-asked housing opportunities, to resurface—if just barely—as Marc Roberts. The Dover PD’s chief had been good to his word to me on the phone. He’d discovered through discreet inquiry that Mr. Roberts, while not seen of late, was still paying the rent at the address I’d been given by my friend at Mount Snow. So it was there that I, two local officers, and Sammie Martens all showed up well before dawn one morning, warrant in hand.
It was a ramshackle, two-story apartment house, designed for its present use but built long ago and on the cheap. Its walls were bare, stained wood, the roof threadbare and swaybacked, the windows small, dirty, and made of non-insulated aluminum. It fronted a dirt road and a barely plowed, frozen-mud parking lot littered with several vehicles of questionable reliability. Lane’s was not among them.
Not surprisingly, the senior Dover patrolman, a sergeant, knew the layout well. “Each unit has only one door, facing front. The bathroom windows are along the back and face the hillside, but they’re too small to get out of—I’ve seen people try. Plus, your guy’s upstairs, so even if he made it, he’d hit the rocks and make a mess.”
We split up, approaching the apartment in armored vests from both ends of the second-floor balcony, two of us armed with shotguns. Then, positioned to either side of the door, we used the manager’s key to quietly turn the lock and poured into the place like marines taking a beach.
It was done by the book, even though we were virtually positive that we wouldn’t find anyone home. And we didn’t.
Turning on the lights after making sure we were alone, Sammie looked around, her distaste of Richie Lane enhanced by what she saw. “Jesus, what a shit hole.”
It wasn’t destined for any hygiene awards. Dark, smelling of mildew, dirty clothes, and rotting organic matter of vague and possibly threatening origins, the apartment reminded me of a human-size hamster cage. The donning of latex gloves was as much to keep our hands from touching anything disgusting as it was to spare the scene our own latent prints.
Not that fingerprints were an issue on most of what we found. An acknowledged clotheshorse, Richie had festooned the place with piles of shirts, slacks, jackets, quasi-pornographic underwear, and an inordinate number of socks. He was also big on prepackaged food, the apparent advantage being less the ease of preparation and more the fact that once eaten, it could be dropped, container and all, wherever he happened to be at the moment.
There was also an ample supply of hard-core videos, many of them stolen rentals, presumably withdrawn under one of his pseudonyms, and a correspondingly wide collection of triple-X-rated magazines. I hoped this wasn’t where Richie brought his dates.
It was clear, however, that he’d been here within the month. Thirty minutes into our archaeological dig, Sammie found a newspaper dated two weeks earlier.
She pointed at a phone near the rumpled bed. “You think he conducted business from here?”
“We can only hope. Get the number and we’ll run it by the phone company.”
“If he did,” she suggested. “Maybe we’ll find some records or files or something.”