The Dark Root

6

Jack Derby, the newly elected State’s Attorney for Windham County, was a startling contrast from his predecessor, James Dunn. Tall, slim, with bookish good looks set off by a pair of tortoiseshell bifocals, Derby was the kind of man Rotarians like to invite over for lunch. He favored sport jackets over suits, appeared easygoing and conversational, never hesitating to stop in a hallway or on the street to answer a question or respond to a comment, and generally came across as an approachable, regular kind of a guy-a man you could trust with your vote.

But however engaging, Derby could also be as tough, demanding, and ruthless as Dunn.

Sitting in Tony Brandt’s office, Derby was slouched down, relaxed, a ready and interested smile on his face, but with eyes as cool and calculating as a pool shark’s.

He held up a finger. “So you think Ben Travers, already hot to leave town, escaped in a stolen car after being tied to a chair and tortured by Sonny and his boys. But for all intents and purposes, there is no Sonny, the man you think is his lieutenant has an alibi, as do his goons, and you have no reliable witnesses to Travers’s intentions, the torture, the car chase, or the final flight off the cliff.”

He held up two fingers. “Then you’ve got these three supposedly connected episodes-a suspicious traffic stop, a suspected home invasion and rape, which may or may not have involved one of the men from the traffic stop, and Travers’s death, which may or may not have involved Asians. Speaking strictly legally here, that’s about it, right? The bottom line is that, aside from the Travers homicide, you really don’t have anything, and even that’s looking iffy.”

Neither Brandt nor I responded. Derby had, in fact, accurately summarized what we had. On top of that, Alice Sims had made her boss proud. She’d picked up that Benny might’ve been done in by a “Chinese named Sonny,” and had made it pointedly clear in that morning’s paper that the police were being less than straightforward with the facts, despite Tony’s reluctant admission that we were indeed dealing with a homicide.

Derby made a gesture to alleviate our discomfort. “Okay. You asked me to listen to what you’ve got, and you heard my opinion. Now tell me what you’re going to get. Maybe that’ll sound better.”

I looked out the window at the ebbing light. Most of the day had been spent picking over every square inch of the Rivière house off Baker Street-and locating Mr. Rivière himself, who was visiting a brother at the federal pen in Rahway, New Jersey. We’d found lots of junk to pick through, but none of it, I felt certain, would end up having anything to do with Benny Travers.

So what did I have to tell Derby, or anyone else, for that matter? That I felt a vague sense of foreboding-that this was somehow a precursor for all hell breaking loose? I had no tangible evidence-a pool of blood on a seat, a terrified look in a young woman’s eyes, an expression of malice on the face of a Vietnamese crook.

“What I hope to find out,” I finally said in answer to his question, “is why Ben Travers was in that house.”

“You think he was there to meet with Sonny?” Derby asked.

I shook my head. “I doubt it. He was nervous as hell the night before, hassling Moe Ellis to speed it up, hoping to hit the road in an unknown car before the paint even dried. And yet, eight hours later, he was still in town, eating pizza. But not at one of his usual haunts, and not hanging out with his usual friends, at least according to them. He was alone, his back to the door as he chowed down for lunch, waiting for someone he trusted. For some reason, he felt the heat had lessened a bit between the time he last saw Moe and when he was trussed up in that chair.”

Brandt’s weary face looked slightly brighter as he heard echoes of his own advice from twenty-four hours earlier. “Waiting for one of his own people?”

“That’s what I’d like to find out. I already have Stennis scouting around. And we do have one piece of hard evidence. Tyler came up with some shell casings from the Upper Dummerston Road. They’re nine millimeter, and they have a rectangular firing-pin impression that’s supposedly unique to a Glock. No fingerprints, though.”

Derby was already shaking his head, looking doubtful. “Where exactly were these casings found?”

“Along the stretch of road where one of the witnesses said he heard shots.”

The SA’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Hold it. I thought you had a whole bagful of conflicting testimony on that. This sounds like a prime witness.”

I pursed my lips. Brandt answered for me. “Not for your purposes. He’s a notorious flake-confesses to crimes he didn’t do, claims to know when the world is ending. It was dumb luck we got him on one of his lucid days.”

“We do have a way to link the casing to the bullet they dug out of Travers, though, at least circumstantially,” I added. “Tyler also got a call from the state crime lab. The bullet was ingrained with the white-powder residue of the car’s rear window, and it was basically smooth, with no lands or grooves from standard rifling.”

“Glocks have polygonal barrels,” Brandt filled in.

Derby gave a half shrug. “I guess if you found the pistol, I could use it, but even then, I’d need more-like the person who pulled the trigger.”

He suddenly launched himself out of his chair and leaned against the window sill to stare out at the parking lot. “To be honest, I think you boys may be up a creek, unless somebody spills the beans, and from what I hear about Asian gangs, that’s not what they do. They’re worse than the Mob about informers.” He turned to face us. “Hell, if that girl’s family won’t tell you about the rape, which one of Sonny’s cohorts do you expect to suddenly open up? You’ve got a problem.”

In the following silence, Derby checked his watch, gave us a dazzling smile, and concluded, “Well, gotta go. Thanks for filling me in. Good luck with the Reformer.”

He closed the door behind him. Through Brandt’s interior window, we watched him crossing the outer office, waving at a few people and tossing a wisecrack at the dispatcher on the way out.

“Pretty cruel,” I commented.

“He’s got a point,” Brandt muttered fatalistically.

I rose to my feet, my determination fueled. “About our having a problem? It’s early yet.”

He gave me a half smile. “Oh, yeah? What’ve you got that you didn’t want to tell him?”

I crossed over to the door. “I’m hoping to educate myself a bit. But if what we’ve got is the start of some new Asian trend, then we’ll see more of it soon, and if they keep doing things like high-speed chases in the middle of the day, then we’ll nail ’em before long.”

My optimism was obviously not catching. Brandt, looking older and more tired than I’d seen him in years, merely said, “I hope so.”

Early the next morning, tucked into my small corner office in the detective squad room, I began the day by pulling a slim address book from my pocket and dialing an in-state, long-distance number.

“State Police Criminal Division.”

“Dan Flynn, please.”

There was a brief pause. “VCIN-Flynn.”

VCIN stood for the Vermont Criminal Information Network, of which Lieutenant Daniel Flynn was director. The title sounded loftier than it was, since there were only two people in the office. Nevertheless, it was a grand experiment, and a credit to both Flynn, who’d thought it up in the first place, and to the Vermont State Police, who’d given him their blessing.

The principle of VCIN was childishly simple-establish a central clearinghouse for intelligence from every police agency in the state, using a process Flynn called the “pointer system.” If I fell over a crook named Bubba, for example, I sent his particulars to Dan, who entered them into his files on a “pointer card,” which he then tagged with my name. If any other cop, at any future date, came across Bubba and queried VCIN about him, Dan would know to put that other officer in touch with me. The beauty was that my file on Bubba never actually left my office-just his name and a few pertinent details. That one technicality guaranteed that no one could “steal” my case-a paranoid, and all-too-common concern of ambitious cops everywhere, and one around which Flynn had wisely constructed his system. As a result, from having no such operation three years ago, the Vermont State Police were now sharing information with-and acting as a conduit for-some thirty-five local law-enforcement agencies out of a possible statewide total of fifty-nine.

That, of course, was not the full extent of Flynn’s resources. His office was also connected to all the standard federal networks, both here and in Canada-as were many of the rest of us-and to Interpol. It also fielded information from the hundreds of Vermont state troopers out in the field, and communicated with state-police agencies throughout the United States.

All of which made Dan Flynn a good man to know. The fact that he was also pleasant and enthusiastic-if a little overly talkative-was a much-appreciated extra, something his greeting drove home now.

“Joe. I haven’t heard from you in months. What you been up to?”

“Nothing much. Things’ve been pretty peaceful.”

His rich laughter deafened my ear. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, boy. I read the newspapers. Soon as I heard about it, I ran Travers through my system here, just to see what popped up-professional curiosity.”

“What did you find?” I asked, curious myself. Travers’s wasn’t one of the names I would have thought to submit.

“He was a bad boy. You know he used to ply his talents in both Rutland and Bennington?”

“Yeah, I’d heard about some of that. Nothing to do with Asian gangs, was it?”

Dan Flynn laughed again, this time with a hint of conspiracy. “You know how it works, Joe. You want details, I give you the guy who handled the case. Period.” He hesitated a moment and then added, “But what about Asian gangs?”

“I think I may have something cooking down here. That’s actually why I called.”

“Got any names?” I could visualize him with his fingers poised over his computer keyboard.

“Yeah-four. Edward Diep, Truong Van Loc, Henry Lam, and Michael Vu.” I spelled each one out for him.

There was a prolonged pause while I heard him typing feverishly away. When he spoke again, I knew I’d definitely hooked his interest. “I found Michael Vu.”

I sat up, surprised that such a long shot had actually worked. “You’re kidding. Where?”

“Hartford-Detective Heather Dahlin. Vu’s been pegged for illegal aliens and possible extortion.”

I quickly wrote down Dahlin’s name, silently blessing VCIN and the foresight that had created it. “Anything else?”

“Not in-state. I take it you already tried the feds.”

“Yeah-nothing except that Truong’s brother was killed in a gang fight and that Vu has an old California rap sheet.”

Flynn grunted sympathetically. “These people all Vietnamese?”

“I guess so. Truong said he was.”

“Vietchin? Of Chinese ethnic origin?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“’Cause if they are, they may still write their names using Chinese characters-being from the old country is a big source of pride to them, especially since they’re discriminated against in Vietnam. If you can get their names in character form, then you can translate the characters using the so-called Standard Telegraphic Codes, kind of like Morse code-and then we can send them via teletype to Interpol, or the Hong Kong police, or whoever else you think might be useful.”

“The names I’ve got won’t work?”

“Not overseas. I’ve tried names that had ‘Bob,’ or ‘Mike,’ or whatever in them, and I’ve hit a dead end nearly every time. They pick those when they get here. ’Course, they might work with other U.S. agencies, like Vu did with me.”

“Okay. Thanks. Why did your ears perk up when I mentioned Asian gangs?”

“They’re suddenly getting popular. Border Patrol’s nabbing them in growing numbers, crossing over from Canada. INS says fully staffed Chinese restaurants are starting to open where there’s little or no market for them, and then showing the IRS a booming business. Our troopers are reporting more sightings. Burlington PD thinks they might have a small gang in the making.”

My mind went back to Thomas Lee, owner of the Blue Willow. “The restaurants are laundering money?”

“Some of ᾿em are. And covering a drug-distribution network and an illegal-alien pipeline and credit-card fraud, and who knows what else. Of course, I have to tell my own people that of the three thousand Asians we have in this state, probably ninety percent are clean as a whistle. But it’s always the bad apples, you know? And Asian bad apples are worse than most-well-organized and super-insular. We’ve found that some of the more suspicious restaurants get supplies like napkins and straws and the rest exclusively from Chinese suppliers in New York, or Boston, or even Montreal, instead of buying them from local distributors. Everything they do keeps them isolated from the rest of society. Part of that’s cultural, I know-but part of it’s real clever, too. I mean, what do we care about a truck making weekly deliveries of tofu and shit like that up and down the state? We don’t, and we’re never going to know how much on board is tofu, and how much is dope or dirty money. These boys are sharp.”

“You getting reports of home invasions and extortion?” I asked, thinking again of the Lees.

“Nope. Usually those kinds of crimes happen in a Chinatown, or at least a residential area where you have a whole lot of Asians lumped together. Vermont’s still mostly just a road between two spots. And I hope it stays that way-none of us has the manpower to tackle it if it really got hot.”

As if he’d been eavesdropping on his own torrent of words, Dan Flynn suddenly stopped and reflected back on what had started this whole lopsided conversation. “You said you thought you had something cooking. What did you mean?”

“I wish I knew. It may just be a small local disturbance, but it’s gotten very violent very fast.”

“Well,” Flynn concluded after a small hesitation, “call again if you need any help. In the meantime, if you like, I’ll run a query through the system about Asian crime in general-see if any towns besides Hartford and Burlington have been having any trouble. Maybe we can come up with a common thread.”

That was an unexpected offer from a very busy man, and it gave me a sense of comfort that we weren’t necessarily alone on this-whatever it turned out to be.

Sol Stennis hit his own pay dirt an hour later, calling me from an office at the back of the Hooker-Dunham Block annex on Main Street. “I think I found Vince Sharkey.”

Sharkey was the elusive second-in-command of Ben Travers’s small inner circle. As unpleasant as his late leader, but without the latter’s native authority, Sharkey’s compensating manipulativeness had made him a natural suspect as Ben’s killer in Brandt’s eyes. To me, that very same trait was why I thought him incapable of such boldness.

In any case, he’d become scarce following a brief preliminary interview with Ron, conducted right after Benny’s body had been identified.

Downtown Main Street, with only a few exceptions, consists of a double row of nineteenth-century, red-brick buildings-squat, grimy, determinately permanent, and for all that, distinctly statuesque. Having survived well over a century, these stolid, functional monuments to a long-past industrial era had finally acquired the kind of patina bestowed on certain elder statesmen.

But like a celebrity’s fame, the impression disguised reality. The Hooker-Dunham Block, almost directly across from an incongruously dinky Dunkin’ Donuts shop, was a typical result of the renovator’s art-it was an undistinguished, albeit practical, maze of apartments, offices, shops, hallways, and even a small theater. Its innards had been chopped up and changed so often since its glory days that it was anyone’s guess how many rooms, complete with inhabitants, might have been accidentally sealed off forever.

The row of buildings lined the entire east side of the street, and cut off a potentially beautiful view of the Connecticut River and the New Hampshire hills lying just beyond. As a result, that abandoned strip of shoreline had been left to the railroad track, the garbage barrels, a few haphazardly parked cars, and a veritable jungle of tall, scraggly weeds-a prime hangout for the drunk, the dispossessed, and those just wanting to be left alone.

It all spoke richly of Brattleboro as a whole, and went far to explain why many people found the town appealingly unique. Neither left to decay in economic depression nor totally gutted and replaced by urban renewalists hell-bent on the latest architectural kick, Brattleboro had thrashed and battled its way up the food chain like a born survivor, making do with what it had, creating citizens of whoever was willing to stake a claim, and establishing itself as an outspoken, politicized, often contradictory place to live. Old and new, rich and poor, native and fIatlander-and, most pointedly, right wing and left-all existed in a jostling, noisy harmony that baffled outsiders and imbued residents with a begrudging sort of pride.

Stennis had told me to find him in some offices at the back of the building, on the Main Street level, which put them about three flights above the train tracks. He met me in the reception area and guided me down a rear corridor. “We’re going to Mary Cappuce’s office. She’s got a front-row seat from her window,” he explained, as if he were making sense.

Mary Cappuce seemed nonplussed to see us, giving us a small wave of the hand before returning to her computer. Stennis parked himself to one side of a large, open window that did have a commanding view of the grubby, cluttered scene below. Like crows from a rooftop, we could consider our pickings at leisure. Unfortunately, I was still a little vague on what those pickings were supposed to be.

“See that big bush down there, between the tracks and the riverbank, just to the far side of the utility pole?” Stennis asked, pointing.

“Yes.”

“There’s a narrow path to the far side of it-leads down to the water’s edge. It’s a favorite hangout for dope smokers.”

Mary’s voice floated up behind us. “When the wind’s right, I feel like I’m having flashbacks.”

I smiled and shook my head-small-town police procedure at work. “And that’s where he’s hanging out?” I asked Sol.

“Tracked him there not fifteen minutes ago.”

“He alone?”

Stennis looked a little less confident. “That I don’t know. There’s no clear view of the actual river edge-part of its appeal. I thought you might want to go down and talk to him, while I guarded the rear.” He pointed a little farther down the tracks, where even I could see a faint worn path cutting through the grass. “Just in case he’s not in a chatty mood.”

Battle plans drawn, I nodded my agreement, thanked Mary for her hospitality, and led the way back outside.

We descended a variety of cement, wooden, and metal stairs until we reached the bottom of the building’s downhill side, and emerged from a service entrance among trash cans and debris. Across the double row of railroad tracks, the weeds and brush looked impenetrably dense, and much taller than they had from above.

We split up and approached the jungle from different angles; I headed for the far side of the huge bush Stennis had pointed out earlier. Just before I took the path behind it, I glanced up at the window we’d been using and saw five women clustered around Mary, eagerly watching the proceedings. I hoped they’d be in for a dull time.

While the day was not at all hot, it felt close and uncomfortably warm amid the dry, dusty, dense vegetation, a sensation no doubt enhanced by not knowing what lay even a few feet ahead of me. I moved slowly down the steep embankment, and as quietly as possible, so that by the time I emerged along a narrow strip of trampled grass lining the water and decorated with a few wooden boxes to sit on, I caught four young men sprawled out on the ground completely by surprise. The joint they’d been smoking flew into the water as they all made a mad scramble up the path Stennis was blocking.

They didn’t even make it to the bushes. As the first of them was about to vanish, Stennis magically appeared, planting his hand against the first one’s chest.

I pointed a finger at Sharkey, the last one in line. “You stay. The rest can go.”

The first three sheepishly hurried past the cheerful-looking Stennis, who’d stepped aside to let them by. Vince Sharkey was left staring sullenly at the ground.

“I’ll give you two a little privacy,” Stennis said affably, and followed the others back to the railroad tracks.

“You gonna bust me?” Sharkey demanded, folding his arms across his chest in an effort to inflate his size. He was more fat than muscular, but big nevertheless, with the prominent brow and single-line thick eyebrows that caricaturists routinely place on dim-witted bullies.

Vince Sharkey was not the kind of kid I liked. The product of as poor a home as any of them, he’d shown no interest in taking any road other than the one he’d pursued from the time he could walk. A natural troublemaker, he’d forever made the people who’d tried to help him rue their efforts, and had made it a point to screw up every decent opportunity offered him. While by instinct no bleeding heart, I did understand why a good number of our younger customers had become the way they were, and despite our being on opposite sides of the law, I’d even developed a grudging benevolence for some of them, like Sally and the Beauprés. But Vince was not one of those, and I knew for a certainty that he’d end up either killed or doing hard time before too many more years went by. He had long ago worn out his welcome with me.

I pointed to a box by his side. “Sit.”

He hesitated, pondering whether to give me a hard time, but he, again unlike the lately departed Ben Travers, was no natural leader. He sat.

“Tell me how Benny died.”

“There’s nothin’ to tell. I didn’t know what happened to him till after. I hadn’t seen Benny for days.”

“Was that the way it was supposed to go down?”

He looked at me sharply, alarmed, which lent me confidence that I was on the right track. “What’s that mean?” he asked, about a full count too late for believability.

I picked a time and date at random. “What were you doing around two o’clock the day before yesterday?”

His face registered total bafflement. “How the hell do I know?”

“You don’t remember?”

He shook his head, his confusion deepening. “What’s to remember?”

“What were you doing at two o’clock the day Benny died?”

“He didn’t die the day before yesterday.”

“Answer the question.”

Vince shook his head, regaining confidence. “I was with a girlfriend and another guy.”

“Give me times.”

He pretended to think back. “Maybe from ten to four that afternoon.”

“And the day before yesterday?” I repeated.

He gave me a glare and began to get up. I caught his shoulder and pushed him back. “What the fuck do I care about the day before yesterday?” he growled at me angrily.

“You don’t know what you were doing at two in the afternoon? Who you were with? Where you were, even? Think hard.”

“I was around, okay? I was on the street, maybe, or visiting friends.”

I didn’t speak for a long time, but turned to look out over the slightly rippled surface of the broad river beside us, enjoying the cool breeze. “It’s funny how you know exactly what you were doing when Benny died almost a week ago, but have no idea about the day before yesterday. I guess that’s because you didn’t need an alibi.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Benny was pretty spooked the night before he died. What did you tell him the next morning to get him to stay in town?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but I interrupted him. “You say you hadn’t seen Benny for days. How many days, Vince? And be careful. Don’t make a mistake. The two of you were seen together.”

He licked his lips.

I cut him off again as he started to speak. “Whoa, Vince. You look like you’re getting nervous. Don’t mess this one up. This could be important.”

“I don’t remember,” he shouted at me, again trying to stand up.

I pushed him back a second time, toppling him from his seat. “Not good enough, Vince. The alibi’s got to stick all the way. Hanging out with your girlfriend for a few hours won’t cut it. Didn’t Sonny tell you that? Shit, yes. If we find out you and Benny were together too close to the time he died, you’re still in it up to your neck.”

“What the fuck’re you talking about?” he screamed.

I stepped forward and stood over him, staring down, gaining confidence from the fear in his eyes, knowing I was pinning him down. “I’m talking accessory to murder, Vince. Not actually being there doesn’t matter. You set Benny up. You swallowed Sonny’s line of bull, but Sonny fucked you over. He needed someone to hang this on in case things got hot, and who better than old Vince-the dumb number-two man?”

He shook his head, incredulous. “You talked to him?”

I crouched down, my face close to his. “Don’t you know how it works, you dumb bastard? What does he give a shit about a zero like you? He didn’t tell you what he was going to do to Benny, did he? And when Benny gave him the slip and had to be chased down, what was Sonny supposed to do? Cover his ass, that’s what. Pull in Plan B. Guess who Plan B is, Vince?”

I pulled away suddenly, leaving him sprawled out on the ground, looking awkward and small. He gathered his legs under him and sat up, rubbing his head, trying to think.

“You’re full of shit.”

“Sonny told you to get hold of Benny before he split town, and tell him you had to talk-just the two of you, at the Rivière place. That’s what the alibi was for, right? Give you some cover for when Sonny met up with Ben. And you actually believed the alibi was to protect you from being tied to an illegal conversation? Boy, oh boy, Vince, Sonny must’ve thought you were a gift from heaven, you’re so stupid.”

Vince sprang up from his crouch and threw himself at me. Anticipating it, I sidestepped, cupped the back of his neck with my hand as he went by, and gave him a helpful shove, letting his own momentum finish the job for me. He fell face-first into the shallow, muddy water by the bank.

Unfortunately, the gymnastics played against me. The cold water cleared his head, and while he grappled back onto shore, spitting and cursing, he also emerged holding the one flaw to my approach. Looking up at me with his hair plastered to his face, he demanded, “Are you going to bust me?”

But I, too, had a Plan B. I gave him a big smile. “Bust you? Vince, you’re a nobody-Sonny’s right on that one. Think of the paperwork, the time, the wasted money. Much easier to let Sonny finish chewing you to little pieces-that way I’ll have more on him when I bust him. You’re much more useful as bait.”

I turned away then and quickly retraced my steps through the brush.

Sol Stennis was standing guard by the tracks. “Have fun? I heard a splash.”

I thought about the gauntlet I’d just thrown at Sharkey’s feet. “The first of several, I hope.”