Occam's razor

28

The return drive from St. Albans was as animated as its counterpart had been glum. From being virtually mute, Sammie was almost back to her old self again, as stimulated as I was by the unexpected mention of Danny Mullen’s name.

“What a weird twist,” she said once we’d regained the interstate. “How do you think Danny connects to all this?”

“Maybe not at all,” I had to admit.

“You saying it’s a coincidence?” Her voice was incredulous. “Pinning Resnick’s death on Reynolds would’ve directly benefited Mark Mullen. Danny probably told his brother to use Walter for the job. I mean, look at the sequence: Mark Mullen’s coming off the peak of his game-running out of time to become governor. If he doesn’t move now, when Howell’s retiring on his own, he’ll not only lose his best shot at that job but probably the speakership, too, since his support’s eroding fast. Then all of a sudden, Reynolds pops up as heir apparent, complete with headline-grabbing bill. No wonder things escalated from a screwed-up break-in, to a rumor campaign, to finally pinning a murder rap on the guy. Mullen must’ve been desperate.”

“He didn’t seem desperate when I met him,” I said. “And he doesn’t look in bad shape now, just using old-fashioned politics. The Reynolds Bill is dead, his version of it is gaining more and more acceptance, and he’s rising in the polls. If anything, the rumor-mongering and the klutzy murder frame helped Reynolds early on. He started running out of gas after they’d been proven false.”

Sammie was so worked up she was almost bouncing in her seat. “That’s the way things turned out, maybe, but the Mullens didn’t know that at the time. You’re not just going to write off Danny’s involvement, are you?”

“No. But I’m not going to jump to the conclusion that the speaker of the House murdered some truck driver to get the drop on a political opponent. What Richie West told us is definitely interesting and needs chasing down, but you’ve got to admit, we’re going to have to work to make a case out of it.”

Sammie crash-dived into her previous mood, staring out the side window without uttering a word.

“You ever been to a racetrack before?” I asked, hoping to bring her back.

“No.”

“Thunder Road’s right on the way. We could make it a cultural experience.”

She turned and looked at me, smiling slightly. “You think Mullen’ll be there?”

“You heard the man-he never misses a race. Maybe he’d be up for a little chat.”

Thunder Road is located in the hills above Barre, covering one hundred and sixty acres. It represents a Vermont never seen in the tourist brochures and yet captures better than most the true essence of the state. It is an irony that Vermont is so well-known for skiing the locals can’t afford, maple sugar they have to sell, and photo-op cows that have all but disappeared. In fact, Vermont is a blue-collar state, only minimally agricultural, marked by marginal incomes, low education investment, small manufacturing, and heavy welfare rolls. Unemployment isn’t too bad, but the kinds of jobs those numbers represent are not the stuff of careers. When Vermonters are asked what they do for a living, more often than not they answer, “Everything.”

Thunder Road was made for them, and it is fitting that it sits above a hardscrabble, working-class, melting-pot town built around the extraction of granite from the surrounding mountains. Stock car racing really boomed in Vermont following World War Two, when energy, optimism, and access to cars were suddenly rampant. There were some eighteen tracks in the state back then, creating a gypsy-like aura of tough, hard-driving, independent, family-supported racers who wandered from event to event, putting up with brutal, primitive, often dangerous conditions, all for the thrill of a near-death experience, a resurgence of the camaraderie born in battle, and a few bucks in winnings. It quickly became a tradition passed from father to son-and lately, to daughter.

It also became a financial phenomenon the locals couldn’t exploit. Before long, the southern states had taken over the sport, using more money, better PR, and far better year-round weather to transform a madcap backfield pastime into a multimillion-dollar national passion.

Nowadays, there are just three racetracks in Vermont, two of them dirt. Thunder Road is the best of a small bunch.

It is also unassuming. Driving into one of the several grass parking lots, hunting for an open slot, I was struck once again by the small footprint the track made on its surroundings. The few buildings-housing ticket sellers, food concessions, announcers, and the like-were modest wooden structures built of plywood and two-by-fours. The track itself was paved, as were the access roads and the pit area, but they were all hemmed in by woods, fields, and grassy hills instead of any commercialized development. And the stands-a spread of concrete steps reminiscent of an ancient Greek amphitheater-were set into the flank of a steep grassy slope running the length of one side of the track. The total effect was more reminiscent of a semipermanent community picnic site than of a forty-year-old institution visited by up to five thousand spectators per night.

But that rural quaintness was visual only. To the ear, there was no mistaking what the enterprise was all about. Sam and I got there late, as the light was beginning to fade, and the races had been running for several hours. The air reverberated with the scream of high-test engines, the squeal of tires, and the rattle-and-pop of other cars waiting in line for the next event. The breeze over the parking lot was thick with the acrid smell of burnt rubber and exhaust. Sammie and I walked to the entrance gate and showed our shields to the ticket-taker.

“Is Danny Mullen around tonight?” I asked.

She smiled brightly, seemingly unfazed by our identities. “Yup. Never misses a night. You’ll have to find him yourselves, though. God knows where he’s at. Unless you want to use the PA.”

“No, no,” I quickly answered. “He’s not racing?”

“He pretty much gave that up. He’s got a team, though. You could ask them-they’re parked with the other late models, up against the hill.”

“Walter Freund around, too?” Sammie asked suddenly.

The woman looked at us blankly. “He a driver?”

Sam shook her head. “Never mind.”

As we followed the edge of the access road leading to the pit area, I asked her, “You think Walter’s here?”

“Not really. Just thought I’d ask. What did she mean by ‘late models’?”

“They race three classes of car here: street stocks, which are four-cylinder jobs mostly run by local teenagers. Intermediates, which they call ‘Flying Tigers,’ I guess from World War Two days-they’re a little pricier and have some high-end equipment on them-and the late models. They’re what you see on TV. They come from all over, travel the country in special enclosed trailers, do about forty races a year, and basically try to make a living at it. They start at around twenty-five thousand dollars and have full support teams. When I used to help my brother Leo try to commit suicide this way, it was all pretty crude-no brakes, no rules, no floorboards, and some chicken wire to stop you from flying into the woods. Nowadays they use computers to calculate the jacking bolts, suspension, fuel loads. It’s all geometry and physics, and they fool with it nonstop, all night long. Not the street stocks, though,” I added, as we passed several of them being worked on by their youthful tenders. “They’re pretty much reduced to playing with tire pressure.” I pointed ahead. “Those are the ones I was talking about.”

We were approaching a long line of large, enclosed, low-slung trailers, their gaping mouths looking like whales poised to swallow the cars crouching before them. Under an assortment of colorful flags advertising STP, Chevrolet, NAPA, and others, groups of men and women in overalls scurried around the cars. Several of them had radios clipped to their belts, with wires running to headsets slung around their necks.

Sammie nodded toward one of them as he jogged by. “What’s with the radios?” A sense of intense purpose was palpable all around us. Everyone was serious and focused, with minimal laughing or joking. To our right, barred from sight by the embankment holding the curve, the racetrack emitted an undulating high-pitched howling.

“Each of the drivers is connected to a spotter. As the cars go around the track, the spotters tell the drivers who’s ahead, whether they’re clear to cut back into line, and other things the driver can’t really tell. They’re moving at eighty-five miles an hour sometimes-twelve seconds every lap. Takes concentration. Here’s Mullen’s car.”

We stopped before a dark blue car bedecked with advertisements, its flimsy hood open to reveal a huge engine unlike anything available in a normal car. The steering wheel had been removed to allow easier access for the driver.

This time, I didn’t show my shield to the young woman coming out of the trailer with a tool in her hand. “Danny around?” I asked.

“Yeah. Up in the stands somewhere.”

We walked along the rows of cars to a chain-link fence enclosing the concrete stands mounted into the hillside. A white-haired deputy sheriff stood by the open gate.

“Hey, Rob,” I greeted him as we drew near. “How you been?”

His craggy face split into a wide smile. “Joe, by God. Haven’t seen you in years. How you been? How’s Leo?”

“He’s fine. Still cutting meat over in Thetford, living with our mom.” I introduced him to Sammie and asked if he’d seen Danny Mullen. He directed us to the upper reaches of the stands.

We climbed the paved path bordering the stands, shading our eyes against the floodlights above the crowd. The higher we got, the more the track dropped away below us, until we could see the entire layout, strung with bare bulbs, circled again and again by a mad pack of jostling race cars filling the air with their screaming. The two curves of the track were nicknamed the Launching Pad and the Widow Maker, and as each car approached either one or the other, I remembered various accidents I’d seen here over the years-miraculously none of them fatal.

I closed my eyes for a split second and let the sounds alone hold sway, recalling how the street stocks squealed more than the late models, since their wheels were configured like those of a regular car. Late models are designed only for tracks like this, and have their right front wheels canted in at an angle to put more rubber on the road during a tight left turn. At eighty miles an hour, the pressure on that one wheel can reach two tons. The point of the exercise, of course, is better contact, which means late models don’t squeal as much as their smaller, lighter, more home-built counterparts.

From the sound alone, therefore, I knew I was hearing the same kind of car Leo had worked on in the family barn for hours on end, dreaming of the day he’d qualify for the big leagues.

“What’re you doing?” Sammie’s voice in my ear cut through the cheering, the nonstop loudspeaker chatter, and the deafening sound of the engines.

“Sorry-reminiscing.” I looked once more at the vehicles below, noticing how each driver seemed isolated and alone in his or her cockpit, as if maneuvering a spaceship through an asteroid shower.

I resumed climbing alongside a crowd remarkable only for its normalcy-all blue jeans, T-shirts, and baseball caps, with a smattering of older folks, the men sporting suspenders stretched over comfortable guts.

We didn’t have any luck finding Mullen. The current race came to an end, a “Victory Lane” banner was quickly rigged on the track facing the crowd, and the announcer grabbed a mike and proclaimed the teenage winner, who was so enthused he leapt onto his car and jumped up and down on the roof. The whole ceremony was over in minutes flat, the banner was removed, and before we’d reached the bottom again, the pace car, sporting a flashing yellow light bar and a boldly painted “Cody Chevrolet” sign, was already positioning to lead the next field of cars, this time late models.

As we cut away from the stands and passed before the crowded concession booth, heading back toward the gate, I saw Rob gesture to us from his post. I waved back as he yelled, “He just went by. I told him you were looking for him.”

But in that instant, I was no longer thinking about Danny Mullen. Attracted by Rob’s yelling over the line of cars behind him, a man straightened from laboring over a late model’s engine and looked up in our direction.

It was Walter Freund, dressed as one of Mullen’s pit crew.

Sammie saw him, too, and immediately began running.

Freund’s reaction was fast and lethal. He sprinted toward us, reached Rob in five steps, and chopped him on the side of the neck, felling him like an ox. He then pulled the old man’s revolver from its holster.

“Gun,” I yelled at Sammie ahead of me.

Sam swerved as Walter aimed and fired a round, her feet slipping on the inclined walkway and causing her to slide like a home-base runner into several men coming out of the rest room. I crouched quickly, steadied my elbow on my knee, and drew a bead on Walter. Too many people were standing behind him for me to risk a shot.

“Police. Drop the gun,” I yelled.

Instead, he shot carelessly at me and then broke for the car parked next to the one he’d been working on, temporarily losing himself in the crowd.

I jogged up to Sammie, who was already fighting off several helping hands. “He’s gone for a car.”

We bolted for the gate, where Rob still lay prostrate, surrounded by a confused crowd of gawking people. The gunshots had blended without notice into the sound of crackling exhausts, so many who’d actually seen Walter fire still didn’t understand what had happened.

I paused long enough to check Rob’s pulse. His other hand reached up and swatted me away. “Get the bastard,” he said, “I’m fine.”

There was a small explosion of sound from where Walter had disappeared, and a yellow late model suddenly leapt backward into the service road paralleling the pits, scattering people like chickens under attack. I saw Walter’s grim face through the plastic windshield as he wrenched the steering wheel around to straighten the car out.

He had but one way to go. Due to the line of cars behind him and the crowd clogging the service road, the only outlet was the entrance to the track. Spewing twin clouds of acrid blue smoke, his car burst toward that direction, almost hitting Sammie and me as it sped past.

Incongruously, we both gave chase on foot, guns out, topping the small embankment enclosing the track just as Walter skidded onto its surface, cutting off the pace car and causing the entire pack behind it to scatter, brakes and tires squealing. To the sound of several collisions, I reached the pace car’s passenger door, pulled it open, and yelled at the astonished driver, “Police. We have to stop that man.”

Sammie piled into the back seat as I slid into the front, and the driver-a young man with a sudden broad smile on his face-took off much as Walter had moments before.

Again, our quarry’s options were limited. He couldn’t make the loop and head back out the entrance chute, since a tangle of race cars was now blocking his way. The grandstands, a tall fence, and a hill cut off other potential exits, so, about halfway down the length of the track, he did the only thing left to him-he cut violently to the right, vaulted over the lip of the track, and took off across the grass toward the parking lots, two rooster tails of dirt marking his progress.

Laughing by now, our driver followed suit. I could hear Sammie behind me being thrown around like a rag doll.

“Seat belt, seat belt,” I yelled at her over the engine noise, while I struggled to follow my own advice. “What’s your name?” I asked the driver.

“Sean. Glad to meet you. He kill someone or something?”

We hit a trough, and I smacked my head against the roof. “Yeah.”

His hands still on the wheel, he said, “Use the radio. Tell them to call for backup.” He had a portable radio wedged under his thigh. I grabbed it, keyed the mike, and said, “This is a police emergency. Call the cops and tell them we have an officer down and are in pursuit. We need assistance.”

The laconic reply was, “Got that. VSP’s already been notified.”

Ahead of us, Freund leapt onto the roadway and fishtailed toward the parking lots. Moments later, with a sickening crunch from underneath, we did the same. Sean let out a yell and hit the gas.

“This thing going to hold together?” I shouted, grabbing the dash.

“Hell if I know, but I’ve always wanted to open ’er up.”

We barreled down between a row of parked cars, grateful to be on a smoother surface, even if it was still dirt. I kept my fingers crossed no pedestrians would suddenly appear. In the straightaway, Walter widened the gap between us.

“Don’t worry about him losin’ us,” Sean declared.

“Why not?” I asked skeptically.

“’Cause he won’t be able to turn right worth shit.”

Those words were still in the air when Walter reached the end of the lane in front of us, cut right to make the corner, and went sailing into a row of cars, sending a shower of sparks into the night air. That canted right front wheel, solely designed for left turns, had bit into the dirt with all the effectiveness of a skinny bicycle tire. We were back on his tail as he recovered and regained speed.

The next stretch played to his favor, however, going downhill in a wide left turn, at the bottom of which the surface returned to asphalt. We were nearing the exit to Thunder Road and the state highway beyond.

“Let’s hope your friends are on their toes,” Sean said, “’Cause this boy’s options are just about to open up.”

Walter seemed to sense the same thing, while simultaneously catering to his vehicle’s one drawback. As he hit the end of the entrance road, he predictably turned left.

I grabbed the radio again. “Anyone out there?”

The response was scratchy, the range being only a mile or so. “Go ahead.”

“We’ve gone left out the entrance. Tell VSP to set up roadblocks.”

Nothing came back except static.

“Guess we’re on our own,” Sammie said from the back.

Sean needed no more urging to apply the speed. I hoped his skill matched his ambition as I felt my back press against the seat-especially as we topped a rise, all four wheels off the ground, and saw Walter ahead of us swerve to avoid an oncoming pickup truck.

Either his lack of skill or that front wheel did him in. He fishtailed slightly, puffs of blue smoke curling from his rear tires, and then he began to slide. As Sean hit the brakes and started us into our own controlled skid, I saw Walter’s car give the pickup a glancing blow and go sailing across the ditch. He smashed into a tree about five feet off the ground and landed with the finality of a dictionary hitting the floor. As we shuddered to a halt not fifteen feet behind him, only slightly out of true with the road, I was suddenly aware of both silence and stillness, even before Sean killed his engine.

I stepped out, glanced over at the pickup’s astonished driver, still frozen with his hands on the wheel, and crossed the ditch to Walter’s car. It was shattered, flattened, surrounded by debris, and utterly, totally at peace.

Sammie was right behind me. “You see him?”

“Not yet,” I said softly. I approached cautiously, gun drawn, aware of sirens closing in from afar, and crouched low so I could see through the passenger window. Walter Freund was holding the steering wheel in a lethal embrace, his rib cage seemingly welded to the car. Blood was everywhere.

He hadn’t had time to fasten his seat belt.

I straightened and turned to Sammie. “Of the three men who killed Phil Resnick, it looks like we’re down to one.”