The Company She Kept (7 page)

“Willy,” he added, giving his attention to his least diplomatic subordinate, “let's try to keep you clear of most of that—no teams, no interactions with the press, no task force activity with other cops.”

Kunkle opened his mouth to complain, but Joe cut him off. “I want you flying under the radar. Do what you do best. Coordinate with the three of us—especially Sam—but operate solo.”

Joe pointed at him for emphasis. “This does not mean you're off the leash. Is that clear? You are to keep in touch and mind your manners. You want me to say this in your language? I want you working where you can do us the least harm and the most good. I'll have enough on my hands without picking up after you.”

Willy was clearly pleased. “Works for me.”

“It better work for all of us.”

 

CHAPTER SIX

Vermont's governor doesn't get a mansion. Not even a split-level suburban. The official residence is not a cot tucked into a one-window room behind the front office, as rumors have had it. But it's still just a nicely appointed apartment and office suite, located on the top floor of a high-rise, catty-corner to the gold-domed state house. In real-world terms, it's about what a junior lawyer might rate in a mid-market city.

Joe had always thought it was pretty swank. Gail, on the other hand, chose to live in a condo on the edge of town, which, to her viewpoint, was much more appealing than an empty office building after hours.

They were expecting him. A somber receptionist fairly leaped to her feet as he crossed the threshold and escorted him through to an inner office. There, a tall, slim man with graying hair and a look of permanent watchfulness was standing in the middle of the room, looking ready, to Joe's eyes, to either receive a ball or run a block.

“Rob,” Joe said, extending his hand in greeting.

Rob Perkins, Gail's chief of staff, responded in kind, his body language easing. “Thanks for coming. This has really shaken her. She's a brick, normally. You know that better than most. But this came out of nowhere.”

Joe was nodding sympathetically. “I understand, and I'm definitely wearing kid gloves, but you should know that I'm not just here to lend support. I have an investigation to conduct.”

“Of course, of course,” Rob said supportively, but Joe could see that the man's watchfulness had returned.

That notwithstanding, Perkins stepped aside and indicated an inner door leading to Gail's office. “She's waiting for you.”

Joe hesitated. “You not going to join us? Or her legal counsel?”

Perkins shook his head. “Normally you'd be right. This time, she just wants you.” He hesitated before adding, “You should know that she was urged not to see you alone, for propriety's sake.”

Joe thanked him and entered the other room, closing the door behind him. Gail was standing by the window, her back to him, and turned at the sound of his entrance. Her face was damp with tears as she approached and buried herself into his shoulder.

“Oh, Joe. Thanks for coming.”

He rubbed her back, finding his own words inadequate. “Least I could do. We're old friends, you and I.”

She pulled back at the comment and studied him, her cheeks pale and her eyes red-rimmed. “We are, aren't we?”

It was phrased as a question, which he actually appreciated, given how their rapport had waned recently. They had once been very close—lovers, emotional allies, intellectual equals. But life had been hard on them, separately and as a couple. Gail had been raped many years earlier; Joe had come close to death more than once due to his job. The steady amassing of concern, paranoia, and a need for self-preservation eventually took their toll, commingling with Gail's post-traumatic need to make more of her life than she had hitherto.

She had always been a strong-minded woman—a feature Joe had enjoyed. Politics, however, and ironically Gail's uncanny success in practicing it, had, in Joe's estimation, tainted her resolve with some recent mean-spiritedness. He understood that the pressures she'd been facing—including a recent tropical storm that had inundated the state—were cumulatively more than she'd ever encountered before. But it didn't mean that her short temper couldn't hurt all the same.

With all of that crowding his thoughts, he laid a hand alongside her cheek—hoping none of it showed—and reassured her, “Of course we are.”

At that, she stepped back and indicated two armchairs facing her desk, instinctively understanding—better than Rob Perkins—the double roles that Joe had to play here.

“You want to ask me questions,” she said. “And I want to help.”

After they'd both sat, he began with, “First and foremost, how're you holding up? This was your oldest friend, as far as I know, predating even me, and what with everything else this office throws at you, my guess is that you don't have the reserves you once did. I appreciate that we both have jobs to do, but how're you doing?”

She didn't answer immediately, glancing around the room first and then settling on his face before responding, “I have a broken heart.”

It wasn't said without affect, as by a woman in shock, nor did she have fresh tears in her eyes. It occupied a middle ground, at once emotional but clear-sighted, as from someone who'd come to grips with permanently losing a part of her anatomy. Joe felt his own throat tighten as a result.

“Susan was my keel,” she continued. “Always there, always reliable. I'd come to see her as an extension of my own thinking, as if she was in my head. If she hadn't been so consistently supportive and selfless, I would've thought it was eerie.”

She sighed and looked down at her hands. “But it never was. Hers was the kind of love they write about.”

Joe exchanged the role of friend for that of the sympathetic investigator. “You were probably among the last to have contact with her, given how often you talked together.”

She nodded without shifting her attention. “That's been troubling me almost most of all.” Her voice had softened to a distant, far-off tone. “I keep wondering how long it was after we last texted that she was killed. Was it hours? Minutes? Did she break away from writing me to answer the door?”

“What was the nature of the text?” he asked, not revealing that they'd already downloaded the contents of Susan's phone.

She looked up to think. “Some news item she'd read from California. She was such a nerd—always fussing about things no one could control. That's what made her so good. She anticipated everything.”

She stopped, arrested by the irony of her own words. “Obviously not everything,” she added dully.

“When was this?” he asked.

In answer, she leaned forward and plucked her cell phone from the desk. She located what she was after and handed it over. He read the last of a text string, a cheery, “Later, girlfriend!” It was time- and date-stamped close to midnight two days earlier—the night before Susan was found.

Joe returned the phone. “And you never heard from her all yesterday?”

“No,” she said simply. “I texted her a few times. I was starting to get really worried, when Rob told me she'd been found. It wasn't like her not to respond to her messages. She was one of those funny people that way: Her house was a total wreck, which made her look sloppy and disorganized, but she was a fiend about hitting deadlines, getting things done, and keeping everything in order. I couldn't figure out what had happened to her when she didn't answer my texts.”

“And you called, too?” Joe asked, not having sent a text in his life, but again remembering what he'd read on the download.

“All I got was her voice mail.”

“Do you know where she was when she last contacted you?” he asked. “Was it Brattleboro or here in town, or maybe someplace else?”

A crease appeared between her eyes. “I just assumed it was here, because of the legislature still being in session. But I don't know. I didn't ask, and she didn't say. You think she was somewhere else?”

“I have no idea,” he answered honestly. “But speaking of the legislature, were there any ongoing issues that had really heated up?”

She stared at him. “To the point of murder? What do you think we do here?”

Diplomatically, he resisted answering.

Gail was rubbing her forehead, thinking. “The hot-button issues are about the same as always: health care, marijuana legalization, farming issues, cell towers and wind turbines, school control. There's nothing like some of the showdown issues we've had in the past, especially now that the Democrats have such a majority.”

“What about the gay/straight debate?” he asked.

Her reaction mirrored Lester's earlier. “
What
debate?” Her face reddened as she continued. “What is it about this? I had no idea you were so narrow-minded.…”

“
Stop it,
” he ordered.

His tone brought her up short. She stared at him openmouthed as he went on, “You know very well whether I'm narrow-minded or not. Your best friend—whom you acknowledged was a lesbian—had ‘dyke' cut into her chest. Don't you think that might…”

This time, she did the interrupting, actually reaching out and touching his mouth with her fingertips. The pain in her eyes arrested his continuing.

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Joe. Please.”

He took her hand in his and squeezed it gently. “Of course,” he said.

She retrieved her hand and covered her face, rubbing her eyes. “I don't know how to handle this,” she moaned. “The phones are starting to go crazy, the press is lining up at the door, you're here asking questions, my staff wants to know the party line. And all I want to do is crawl into a hole and mourn my friend in private. It's like all the bullshit after the rape is being stirred up again. I can hardly breathe, and I'm supposed to be the cool-headed chief executive, setting the example.”

He rubbed her shoulder as he got to his feet. “Well, at least I can take myself out of the equation. If anything comes up, don't hesitate to reach out, okay?”

He touched her hair with his fingertips as she remained hunched in her chair, and took his leave, still smarting from her outburst.

*   *   *

Parker Murray and Perry Craver were aware of the joking behind their shared alliterative moniker. Their wives had even ordered T-shirts for a squad party two years ago, reading, “I'm the other one,” along with a mug shot of the man not wearing the shirt.

Kidding aside, however—and despite their names—they had first met as young men in the academy, when they were both aspiring to take the state police by storm, and had maintained a comfortable, rewarding, almost second-nature friendship that had nurtured them both through the ranks—including when they'd defected as a team to the VBI, attracted by the elite unit's looser structure and higher-profile caseload.

By now, they lived in neighboring towns, their wives and families were friends, and when they weren't referred to by the catchy patter of their first names, colleagues often fell back onto the more predictable Batman and Robin. Regardess, the bottom line remained the same: They were an instinctively matched pair of good, hardworking detectives, which helped explain why the VBI had taken them on without a quibble.

At the moment, they were mimicking what Lester and Willy had done earlier in Brattleboro, by relieving the guard posted on the top landing of the suite of rooms that Susan Raffner had rented in Montpelier, and preparing to give it a going over.

This wasn't their first visit. When news of Raffner's death had first circulated, Willy Kunkle had called their office to at least get the address sealed off. They'd done a walk-through to check for obvious signs of violence, and to collect any computers or laptops. They'd found just a tablet, which they'd handed over to the crime lab, adding to the other electronics already gathered from Susan's car, purse, and Brattleboro home.

This second visit was to be more methodical and slowly paced. Normally, it would have been conducted by the mobile forensic lab, but they were committed to the cliff top where the body had been discovered—with Raffner's car and primary residence waiting next in line. The executive decision had therefore been made to let Parker and Perry use their training and experience to conduct the search on their own.

It was yet again reflective of a small rural state's ongoing struggle to supply at least a semblance of modern police work, but on a shoestring budget. In many ways, whatever Vermont's flashier high-tech centerpieces may have been—from state-run Web sites to supposedly universal cell service to a truly modern forensic lab—they were too frequently dogged by a quaint and ancient aura, vaguely reminiscent of the late eighteen hundreds.

The house the two detectives entered, stamping their feet free of snow, was at once charming and horrific—if your taste ran to modern spareness. An ancient, worn Victorian, the place had once been a jewel box of a building, filled with several lifetimes' worth of memorabilia. But as with all such cumbersome structures, it had also been built with a full household staff in mind—a detail it was currently lacking.

It belonged to Regina Rockefeller—the ancient, birdlike, wispy-haired homeowner—who greeted them as she had the first time, by throwing open the heavy front door with surprising dexterity, and twisting her head around so that she could peer up at them from the permanent stoop imposed by an arthritic, hunched back. She looked as if she were forever in search of a lost contact lens.

“My goodness,” she said happily. “You boys again? Come to relieve your friend? I'm afraid he's terribly bored up there. I'd keep him company, but that's why I rent the upstairs. My stair-climbing days are long gone. One reason it was such fun having poor Susan living here was that she was forever running up and down, keeping me company and keeping the place alive. This old pile is going to be like a morgue without her. Even if I can find a replacement, I'm not sure it'll ever be the same. Susan was a very special girl. She was also such a help with the snow, shoveling the walk when Useless Fred went and forgot me for the fortieth time. That's what I call him, Useless Fred, because of all the good he comes to, given the money I pay him.”