Open Season (28 page)

I stopped by Maxine’s window early the next morning and picked up the daily report. Brandt had entered everything I’d dug up to date.

“You’ve certainly been busy.”

“Not having to write your own reports helps.” She rolled her eyes. “Friends in high places. He wants to see you, by the way.”

“Did he ever go home?”

“He was here when I came in.”

I thanked her and went back to Brandt’s office. He looked the same as always—no stubble on the chin or bags under the eyes. The man seemed immune to the common signs of wear and tear. “Thanks for this.” I waved the report.

“How was Boston?”

I laid a copy of Pam Stark’s arrest sheet on his desk and settled in a chair. “I think the address is bogus; I don’t know about the name.” He read it over quickly. “Pam Stark, huh?”

“Yeah. I looked at a map of Connecticut this morning. Assuming she didn’t tell a bald-faced lie, she might have picked the name of a town near hers, which would make it Norwalk or Bridgeport or Wilton, something like that. We could query the local cops on it, and if we come up dry, we could try the state police.”

Brandt nodded. “Sounds good to me. I’ll get on it.”

I stood to go and he leaned back in his chair to look up at me. “I thought you’d like to know that John Woll did a little investigating on his own yesterday.”

“Oh?”

“He thought our mysterious friend might have bought his ski mask in a local store, so he went to every outlet he could think of and asked about recent purchases—his was during his time off.”

“And?”

“And nothing; he came up dry. But I thought you’d like to know.”

I smiled and shook my head, remembering Murphy’s wrath at the man. “Poor bastard; he’s going to be living that one down for years.”

“What’re your plans, by the way?”

“Mend fences with Willy Kunkle.”

I stopped by Maxine’s window again on my way to my cubbyhole office. “Has Willy come in yet?”

“Nope.”

“Give me a buzz when he does, will you?”

I had mixed feelings about dealing with Kunkle. He was so totally irascible I was half-inclined to let him self-destruct in private. But he was still a functioning cop and had once been a good one. He had also become my direct responsibility, now that I was acting captain, and in all conscience I couldn’t let him slide without at least offering a hand. My timing, though, was utterly self-serving. Kunkle, more than anyone on the force, was wired to Brattleboro’s small but intense narcotics trade.

The phone buzzed before I even sat down. “He’s hot on your heels.”

I stuck my head out into the hallway and caught him as he entered. “After you’ve read Brandt’s summary, could I see you for a minute?”

“What about?” His voice was neutral, which for him was probably a good sign.

“I’ll tell you when you’re finished; it’s related.”

He was in my doorway three minutes later, a sour look on his face. “Is this where I get my walking papers? Or do we go the ‘you’ve-been-under-a-lot-of-strain-lately-why-not-take-some-time-off ’ route?”

“No. We do the ‘why-don’t-you-put-your-butt-in-that-chair-and-can-the-crap’ bit. Is that acceptable?”

He didn’t answer, but he sat.

“I need your help on this thing, but I want to make something clear first. We all know you’re in some sort of personal bind. So far it hasn’t gotten in the way of you doing your job, although you seem hellbent on that happening. Maybe you want out and you don’t know how to do it—beats me. So I’m asking you—pure and simple, no strings attached—do you want to be a cop or not? Because if you do I’ve got some business I want help with.”

“What?”

“Answer the question, and think about it first.”

He thought, but not the way I wanted. “What are you after? What’s the game?”

“The game is I’m trying to get to the other side of your paranoia. I want to know if you, William Kunkle, want to be a cop. Yes or no.”

“And if I say yes, then I’ve got to go see a shrink, right?”

I shook my head and sighed. “I think you need a shrink in any case, but if you say yes, then I’ve got business on my mind.” I pointed at the summary in his hand. “Relating to that.”

“All right. Yes.”

“Thank God. Now promise you’ll try something for me, will you? Let’s just work together on this thing. I won’t ask what’s bugging you, and you stop assuming everything I say has a double meaning. Deal?”

“You’re really making me into a nut case.”

“The way I feel now, I’m the one headed for the rubber room.”

I took a deep breath. “Look, Willy, I think maybe we all let you down a little here. Cops have more stress than any professionals I know. It’s as common as the flu. We ought to help each other out more because of that, but maybe the macho thing gets in the way; I don’t know. In any case, it’s easier for cops to let a fellow cop slide, pretending he’s just eccentric, than to offer him help. And on the flip side, it’s normal for that cop to think he can deal with it himself—that if he asks for help, or shows he needs it, everyone’ll think he’s a weenie. So everyone loses. I think that’s what’s happening to you and I also think it stinks. For what it’s worth, I’d like to apologize for not having done something earlier.”

“And what are you going to do now?”

“Nothing you don’t want me to. I’d like to bring you into the Stark thing because I just thought of a drug angle and that’s where you’re hot. But I’d also like you to know that I’m approaching this as if it were a whole new case. The fuck-ups that landed Bill Davis in jail are past history, and we’ve all got to answer for them—you probably least of all, because you were lowest on the totem pole. If any heads roll, they’ll start at the top, among Brandt and Dunn and the board and Tom Wilson, and they’ll even dig up Frank Murphy and wave him around before they get to me and you, so I wouldn’t worry…You want to do business?”

“Yeah.”

As usual, it didn’t make him break into song, but this time—for the first time—I actually sensed I might have penetrated. I ran him through everything then, in chronological order, from the Jamie Phillips killing to my flash in the night a few hours ago; I also included Frank’s cover-up, an admission I could tell he appreciated. He sat and listened, looking carefully at the contents of the file I was building, item by item, without saying a word.

“So,” I ended up. “Who’s the local gossip in the trenches?”

“Ted Haffner. He’s not the gossip; he’s not even in the business much any more, but a couple of years ago, he was the number-one heroin man in town.”

“What happened?”

Kunkle gave a little smile. “These people aren’t much for job security. He got interested in other things, mainly sampling his wares.”

“Is he friendly?”

“He’s not a snitch, if that’s what you mean. He’ll take some work.”

“Well, let’s do it.”

Kunkle remained seated, his face regaining that familiar cloud. “So who shakes him down?”

I stood and showed him both palms. “Hey, Willy, he’s your baby. I’m just riding shotgun.”

Still Kunkle stayed where he was, reading the summary. “So Stan followed you to Susan Lucey’s and supposedly Christ-knows-who tailed you from Connecticut. Have you been watching your back lately?”

I still hadn’t told anyone about the private detective from Burlington. “I didn’t see much point.”

“Why not? It sounds like an easy way to pick up bad guys, maybe even Ski Mask.”

“So what do we do? Get one of our own to tail us, and hope he picks up the competition?”

“It’s an idea. We might get lucky. If nothing else, it might dissuade people from following you around and lousing up the case.”

It seemed silly as hell to me. I don’t know why—pride maybe—but I wasn’t going to antagonize Kunkle now that he’d agreed to help out. I picked up the phone and arranged to have an unmarked car follow us from a distance.

· · ·

Ted Haffner lived in a trailer park on the outskirts of West Brattleboro—the last cluster of urban dwellers before Route 9 began its gradual climb into the Green Mountains. In fact, it was so much on the fringe it was hard to tell whether the homes or the trees were gaining the upper hand in taking over the real estate. My personal bet was on the trees. Mostly evergreens, they stood tall and dark, their bristling skirts massive and ancient in the flat, gray light. The trailers, by contrast, sandwiched between the icy crusts on their roofs and the rough turmoil of ground-up, dirty snow around them, looked like the remnants of a civilization long on the ropes.

We bumped along a winding track, weaving between snow covered sofas, rusting cars and assortments of trash and cordwood. No one was visible, although several of the battered, dark-windowed homes leaked thin strings of gray smoke from their oily metal chimneys.

“I see the drug trade stood Mr. Haffner in good stead.”

Kunkle was at the wheel, trying to save his car’s suspension from as much abuse as possible. “Like I said, as a businessman, his mind tended to wander.” He stopped before an oblong metal shack, modest even by these standards, a mobile home whose only movement was toward disintegration. “This is it.”

We climbed out and walked unsteadily across the frozen debris scattered outside the small aluminum front door. Kunkle pounded on the wall. “This is purely a formality. He never does answer.”

He grabbed the doorknob and pulled. As the door swung back, I noticed a faint, wispy cloud billow out like a belch. Kunkle put his foot on the high threshold and heaved himself inside. I followed him, my nostrils flaring at the overheated stench. Before my eyes adjusted, I thought the place was totally blacked out, but a faint glow slowly grew at the far end, where Kunkle was already talking with someone.

“Hey, Ted. How’re you doin’?”

There was a mutter in response. I groped down the length of the trailer, leaving the decayed and littered kitchen/living area where we’d entered, squeezing through a tiny hallway with a stinking bathroom on one side and ending up in a heavily curtained bedroom. Kunkle was sitting on the edge of a bunk, looking at a long-haired, bearded man propped in the corner against a pile of blankets and dirty pillows. To say Ted Haffner appeared unwell is an understatement—I’d seen pictures of Egyptian mummies that looked healthier. Curiously, his eyes were clear and normal looking, as if the body and the mind were totally separate entities, the one dying, the other trapped within.

I could distinguish the slurred muttering now. “This is private property. Scram.”

“Don’t be hostile, Ted. This may be worth your while.”

“How much is my while worth?” I thought that was a good question, given his appearance.

“Twenty bucks.”

“Fuck off.”

“All right. I’ll ask the question, and you put a price tag on it.”

“Five thousand for the time of day.”

“What’s your problem?”

“I don’t like you.”

“Hell, my wife doesn’t like me; she still takes my money.”

“She’s greedy and stupid then.”

“So I guess that makes you just plain stupid, right?”

“Why don’t you get out of here? You’re trespassing.” Haffner made an attempt to get up, but it was half-hearted and unsuccessful. He lay back, breathing heavily.

Kunkle placed his hand on the man’s bony chest. “You don’t look too good. You got something around I can get you?”

“Yeah, shoot me up.”

“Food, Ted, food. When was the last time you ate something?”

“Fuck off.”

“You can’t afford it, can you? I got a history question for you; it’s not a snitch job. You tell me about old times, I lay a fifty on you and you get a square meal, or a trip to outer space. What’s the harm?”

Haffner looked at us sullenly, weighing the offer. “What’s the question?”

“About three years back, when you were top dog, a buy was made—a one-bag deal that ended up in the room of the black guy who iced the chick at the Huntington Arms. You remember that?”

“Sure I remember.”

“But the black guy didn’t make the buy, did he?” Haffner gave us a big smile. “You said history. This sounds more like current events.”

Almost simultaneously, I heard the floor creak behind me and felt a cold draft on my neck. I turned to see a tall man wearing a black jumpsuit and ski mask pointing a gun at my head. He had made the distance from the front door to the back bedroom in an instant. “Hi, Joe.”

Kunkle jerked around, his hand moving to his belt.

“Don’t do it.” Kunkle saw the gun, now jammed in my throat.

“What the hell’s goin’ on?” Haffner again tried to sit up.

“Shut up.” Ski Mask moved into the room and looked around. I was having a hard time breathing with my windpipe half closed off. He motioned to Kunkle. “Hand over the gun.”

Kunkle handed it over. Ski Mask slipped it into his jumpsuit pocket and added mine to it. He then told Kunkle to slip his handcuffs through the handle of the closet door farthest from Haffner’s bunk and to lock himself in. He attached me to the other end. Finally, he patted us down, took the key to the handcuffs, and sat where Kunkle had been.

He put his own gun away and smiled at Haffner. “So, what were they asking you?”

“Who the fuck are you?”

Ski Mask turned toward us. “What’s his name?”

Kunkle looked at me in amazement. “Is that him?”

I might have laughed if I hadn’t felt such an enormous sensation of menace in this man. Ski Mask was like a panther who had stalked his prey for days on end, calming his growing hunger with thoughts of the inevitable feast. The tone in his voice indicated that mere thinking was no longer doing the job, that some action was required, at whatever cost to all concerned. I was scared to hell for everyone in that hot and fetid room.

I felt all this because he was obviously taking a calculated chance. The two questions he had asked—Haffner’s name and the topic of our conversation—indicated just how much he was gambling that this one half-dead man might give him a crucial advantage. In fact, if we were lucky, he’d gambled too high; I was thinking of the tail Kunkle had insisted upon.

“His name’s Ted Haffner, but he’s got nothing to tell you. He’s a dead end.”