The Company She Kept (8 page)

She said all this as if in a single sentence, slowly backing up to allow them to enter. In fact, they imagined that the uniformed Montpelier cop who'd been asked to secure the top floor was less bored than he was frightened of being cornered by his hostess, since they could see him cautiously peering over the railing overlooking the two-story entrance hall where they were standing.

They honored his silent cowering by not waving or speaking out, instead heading toward the elaborate hardwood staircase and letting Miss Rockefeller know that they'd be back down in a while, and maybe enjoy sharing a cup of tea then.

That central hall told the tale of the house—wood panels, stained-glass windows, both soaring overhead to a vaulted, coffered ceiling and an enormous chandelier—suspended like a relic caught between the Middle Ages and
Downton Abbey.
It was all on display from a magisterial staircase that ran along two adjacent walls, leading up to a landing suitable for an operatic diva. And yet, dust covered everything, the dirty windows demanded compensatory lighting at midday, and enough bulbs were burned out in the chandelier to render such effort futile. The rugs were threadbare, boxes were piled everywhere, there was a scent of mustiness touched by mildew in the air, and Perry noticed a few rodent droppings scattered along the treads as he climbed. The hired help of yore was being sorely missed.

“Damn,” he muttered. “See that? And her name's Rockefeller?”

“That means rich, bro,” Parker told him. “Not tidy.”

They found the patrol cop standing just out of sight from below. “You the VBI guys?” he asked.

“One and only,” Parker answered. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “She got you cornered?”

The man only half smiled. “Pretty much. I can't use the bathroom up here, 'cause it's a crime scene, and every time I go downstairs, she's waiting with that nonstop-talking thing. She's a nice lady. I'm not saying she's not. But she just never takes a breath, you know?”

“Yep. Noticed that.”

Perry was looking around, mostly studying the floor. Parker tilted his head in his direction. “He's afraid of giant rats, or maybe cockroaches.”

The cop laughed. “Nah. It's better up here. This part's messy, but Raffner knew how to vacuum.”

“Thank God for that,” Perry said softly.

“Okay,” Parker addressed the cop. “You're off the hook for a while. We're going to poke around. We'll call the PD when we're done so they can send somebody to sit on the place again. With any luck, you'll be off duty, huh?”

“Got that right,” the man said, passing them by and heading for the stairs. He paused a moment to point to a door blocking the distant hallway. “That's as far as it goes, just so you know. That door's locked. This side was Raffner's apartment; past there is someone else's. The old lady rents rooms above the garage, too.”

Parker nodded. “Thanks.” He waited until the patrolman was out of earshot before he made an aside to his partner, “Maybe not so rich, either? I didn't know the other side was a rental, too.”

But Perry wasn't so quick to agree. “Maybe that's why she
is
rich—her and the whole family.” He tapped the side of his head. “Smart, if you don't mind strangers wandering around your house.”

“Don't guess she does,” Parker agreed as they heard Regina Rockefeller burst into a volley of chatter as their colleague hove into view downstairs.

They began from where they stood, putting down the kits they'd brought with them and struggling into gloves, Tyvek suits, and booties before spreading out and scrutinizing the worn rug of the landing, sometimes going down on all fours and using hand lights to see better. Compared to their prior visit here—to take a glance and grab the electronics—this stay promised to last a lot longer.

Raffner's rented suite came to a bathroom and three rooms, which she'd split up into a bedroom, an office, and something resembling a hodgepodge, office/living room. There was no kitchen—probably making the whole rental an illegal arrangement—but there was a hot plate in the bathroom and a microwave in the general room.

These college-style touches didn't stand out. As Willy and Lester had found earlier in Brattleboro, so Parker and Perry discovered that Susan Raffner, despite her prominence as a mover and shaker, had the interior decorative skills of a teenager.

But, to echo the Montpelier cop's parting observation, at least she'd known how to vacuum. For this, Perry was most grateful, especially as he stretched out prone to check under furniture.

They took hours, during which they collected files, boxes, letters, notebooks, notes by the dozen, and a pile of mail. They also found an ample pound of marijuana—a huge lode compared to the baggie that Willy Kunkle had gingerly examined in Brattleboro.

The prize, however, was something Parker found in a cardboard box labeled
RECYCLE!
It was a single page with a hand-printed note, folded and roughly stuffed back into the torn envelope in which it had been delivered.

“There are times I love this job,” he announced, sitting cross-legged on the floor before the box, next to Raffner's desk, office paper all around him and this letter in his gloved hand.

“Got something?” Perry asked, deep into the bottom drawer of a nearby filing cabinet.

Parker pulled an evidence envelope from the pocket of his suit, but paused before filling it to show off his prize. “Read that,” he said.

Perry oriented the letter right-side up. “Dykes shood die,” he read aloud.

Your a disgrase to wimmen + mothers + GOD. Burn in HELL.

He nodded thoughtfully. “Not sure his English teacher would approve, but he makes his point.” He flipped the page over before handing it back. “Too bad he didn't sign it.”

Parker waved the envelope. “Who says he didn't? I bet he licked the flap. There's no stamp, but his fingerprints have got to be all over this.”

“No stamp?”

Parker handed over the envelope, saying, “Looks like the corner was torn off when she opened it. It's pretty mangled.”

Perry shook his head in wonderment as he studied it. “Unbelievable—a return address. Where do they find these geniuses?”

“I know, right? It's just a PO box, but better than nothing.” He secured his find into the evidence pouch after Perry returned it, scribbling the case number on the outside, along with his name and a note about where it had been located.

“How deep in the recycling did you find that?” Perry asked.

“Near the top, which fits it having arrived a few days ago, maybe.”

“You look for the torn-off corner, too?”

“Yeah,” Parker said, his voice disappointed. “No luck. Probably fell on the floor and got thrown out.”

“I can't believe it's Newport,” Perry mused.

Parker grinned. “Yeah. You think they'd be happy to sleep with anything warm up there, lesbians included.”

Parker scowled at him. “You know I come from near there.”

Perry just chuckled.

 

CHAPTER SEVEN

Sammie Martens looked up from the paperwork spread across the dining table, her subconscious disturbed by one of those vague ripples in one's universe. She glanced at her watch. It was late. Emma had been asleep for hours. It was Willy, she realized. He was in the house, where he'd normally be tucked away, engaged in some project, but her senses told her that he was up to something else.

She rose and quietly walked through their neat, spare home, located at the top of a semicircular block of similar houses in West Brattleboro. It had been Willy's when he'd lived on his own, and in large part remained so, at least in spirit. Of Willy's multiple demons, one was a quasi-obsessional need for cleanliness and a lack of possessions, which Sam thought stemmed from his past or his occupation, or both. Either way, it resulted in an environment in which Sam certainly, and Emma by proxy, had to step with some care. Willy wasn't overbearing about it—he made an effort not to show his near-visible discomfort. But he would tidy up behind them, which in a way was a blessing. Sam hadn't touched a broom, a rag, or even washed the dishes since moving in.

A friend had asked her if any of this made her feel like a guest in her own home. But that was where Sam's emotional needs almost perfectly complemented Willy's. Given a youth of chaos, violence, and confusion, where she'd craved not being at the center of a whirlwind, here she cherished inhabiting a neutral space. For her, their neat-and-tidy home amounted to a haven of calm.

By instinct, she went directly to Emma's halfway-open door and peered in, not surprised to see Willy lying stretched out on the rug, parallel to the crib, staring meditatively at the slowly revolving mobile hanging over his daughter's sleeping form.

Without a word, Sam slipped through the doorway and lay next to him, hooking a pinkie finger around his.

He turned his head toward her. She stayed quiet, looking back. When the two of them had gotten together, years ago, no one except Joe had given them hope. Joe, typically, hadn't even registered surprise. This Sam had interpreted as the one vote of confidence she might have actively sought out otherwise. Willy hadn't expressed any need for acceptance, of course, but she thought that he, too, had appreciated Joe's blessing.

It wasn't lost on her that two grown adults had wanted the approval of a man who was not a family member and was also their boss. But such was the nature of what their small squad had become—versus their actual families.

By extension, however, it occurred to her that even Joe's opinion no longer mattered now. Emma's arrival had marked a passage toward independence and self-confidence, if one occasionally jarred by doubt. She and Willy worked hard to maintain a balance within this house, even encouraged by the challenges that had hounded them since youth.

“Ice cream?” he whispered to her.

They moved to the kitchen, where she let him prepare two small bowls—frozen yogurt for her, a cloying and layered concoction of Cherry Garcia, nuts, sprinkles, and maple syrup for him.

“How's the campaign going?” he asked, busying himself.

As requested during the staff meeting at Joe's house, Sam was trying to organize the forces at their disposal.

“It's tricky right now,” she said. “We have so little to go on, while we have a growing chorus of people demanding results.”

“Damn peanut gallery,” he groused.

“I've been figuring out how many people just to assign to media relations. Joe told me that the national news guys are already pounding at the door.”

“Tell him I volunteer,” Willy said. “And I'll do it solo.”

“Right.” She laughed. “Like the Unabomber, maybe.”

He placed the bowls on the kitchen table and sat opposite her. “You wanna waste manpower, be my guest. Before this is done, I have a feeling we're gonna be yanking troops from media relations and putting them in the trenches.”

“Really?” she asked, genuinely surprised.

He looked at her knowingly. “I'm not the only one. Why do you think the boss gave me the floater job? He's smelling a rat here, just like I am.”

*   *   *

Newport occupies the southernmost tip of a long, skinny lake, three-quarters of which lies in Quebec, Canada, and all of which is saddled with the tongue-twisting name of Lake Memphremagog. Once a logging and railroad town, Newport is smaller than nearby St. Johnsbury, but brags of a more picturesque setting. This is a good thing, since tourist recreation has arguably become the city's biggest reason for being. Otherwise it is a blue-collar community, fortunately located near Jay Peak, the thirty-mile-long lake, and Canada itself.

It also caps Vermont's fabled Northeast Kingdom, an area whose nominal capital is Newport's aforementioned rival “St. J,” some forty miles to the south. The Kingdom—labeled thus most famously in a 1949 speech proclaiming its beauties—is isolated, heavily forested, and almost empty, even by Vermont standards. It is also heralded as a bastion of sometimes eccentric or isolationist inhabitants.

Vermonters were proud of the Kingdom and its quirky lore, enjoying its hunting and wilderness offerings, while perhaps paying less attention to its financial straits and social woes. Natives eager to earn a living often moved away, while people seeking refuge from the wider world came to settle—or tried to until the harsh weather or the economy drove them off.

Finding that some anti-lesbian hatemonger had an address within the Kingdom had been disappointing to Joe Gunther, who had been introduced to the region by a favorite uncle during summers long past. But, sadly, it had not been a huge surprise.

Lester Spinney was at the wheel as the snow-covered countryside unfolded before them, the enormous white slab of the frozen lake coming gradually into view. Joe liked Lester to drive, as if the latter's steady, dependable spirit leached into how the car handled the road.

“It's fun to be back,” Les said. “Remember when you and I worked that old case together? I was still with VSP and you were on assignment for the local state's attorney? That was years before the VBI was even a glint in anyone's eye.”

Joe did remember, as he did so many other cases across this small state. By the time he had reached his current place in the law enforcement pecking order, it was easy to believe that he'd either worked with or met a majority of his fellow colleagues. Spinney, nevertheless, had been a standout, both because of his storklike appearance and his near-bulletproof good cheer. Native-born, like Joe, he carried a reasssuring sense of being where he belonged.

“Who did you get out of our St. J office to work on this?” Joe asked.

“To convince the post office to cough up the PO box holder? Cila Lewis,” Lester answered. “You know her?”

Joe thought for a moment, priding himself on knowing all of VBI's special agents. “We met a couple of times. She came from the Burlington PD, didn't she?”