The Marble Mask

Chapter 4

To most people-especially those “from away”-Stowe, Vermont, means downhill skiing. Which, sadly but understandably, counts for a great deal, since Vermont itself has been reduced to skiing, maple sugar, fall foliage, quaint villages, black-and-white cows, taciturn people who make for lousy waiters, and, just maybe, the eccentric top competitor in the luxury ice cream market.

Not surprisingly, the town didn’t start as a ski resort. The mountain that has made it such isn’t even named Stowe, but Mount Mansfield, and the village can follow its roots back to when skiing was unheard of and lumber its primary cash source. But it is tourist-dependent now, to the point where most of its money actually comes in during the summer months, and many of its key decision-makers are originally from out of state, referred to by disgruntled, dispossessed locals as “flatlanders.”

It has become a place gently at odds with itself, where wealth conflicts with poverty, residents with tourists, native-born with newcomer, tradition with the trendy. Even the population has extremes. Resting at 3,500 during the off-season, and swelling to 25,000 within the right couple of days, it supports seventy-two businesses selling liquor and the highest concentration of motels and hotels in the state. Among Vermonters, Stowe has been dubbed a “gold” town-its residents painted as financially above the norm, regardless of their origins or the actual size of their bank accounts. To be “from Stowe” is to be regarded differently, perhaps distrustfully, as if the person being scrutinized might be capable of some immediate capitalist sleight of hand that would play to the observer’s disadvantage.

As with all such perceptions, of course, the truth is far more complicated. In the huge mountain looming on the edge of town-the tallest in the state-Stowe had found an asset that could offer it some economic stability through the years. It made concessions to the outsiders and their money, watched how these visitors expressed their needs and desires, and slowly transformed itself from a ski slope’s service-oriented road stop to a year-round commercial enterprise, hosting antique car rallies, dog and horse shows, and a broad selection of hiking, biking, tennis, golf, and other outdoor activities. The fortunes of the company owning the actual ski resort have wobbled now and then, to the point where of old the town might have become alarmed, but the breadth of business diversity has reached such an extent by now that the once vital umbilical cord, though still important, isn’t what it used to be. Stowe as a whole has become a corporation, and the mountain business, like the parent of an ambitious, precocious family, has had to concede to being one of the crowd.

The police force for such a place faces a challenge, largely because of the population swings. The Stowe PD is in the unusual position of having more part-time officers, at seventeen, than its full-time staff of thirteen, just to handle the seasonal discrepancies. And they are a hard-working crew. On a per-officer, per-complaints-handled, per-day basis, the Stowe cops outwork the hundred-member police force in nearby Burlington, although the Burlington crew would correctly contend that their population contains a rougher mix of humanity. The Stowe PD also works high profile, conducting frequent vehicle stops, dropping in on bars and nightclubs unannounced and unasked, and generally making itself seen, patrolling the streets in a small fleet of sport utility vehicles.

This visible police presence has been largely because of Frank Auerbach, whose philosophy was that the more cops the bad guys see, the less appealing Stowe will appear for easy pickings. And there certainly were bad guys-every year, drug dealers, thieves, con artists, and sexual predators came to town like camp followers trailing an advancing army. As a result, Auerbach’s force was trained to ask for more than just a driver’s license and registration at a vehicle stop. His officers could be downright chatty, wanting to know where you were headed and staying, what your plans were while in the area, what you did for a living, and what place you called home. The grumblers complained of harassment. Auerbach countered that if you kept your nose clean, you never had to have such a conversation. And he played no favorites, barring one exception. Selectmen, millionaires, and bums were all handled the same, but his “guys” as he called them-regardless of gender-he pampered as much as he could. He bought them the best shoes he could find, the best vehicles, guns, armored vests, and anything else he could think of, all from money forfeited from convicted drug dealers. The upside to the area’s expensive taste in narcotics was that the Stowe PD could reasonably join federally backed drug task forces, from the DEA on down, and thus benefit from the federal rules of booty sharing. To judge from the PD’s equipment, business had been good.

All this I researched before heading out to visit Frank Auerbach for the first time, alone and unofficially, hoping to smooth whatever rough water might have been created by the ham-handed way our services had been offered. Happily, I already knew the door was at least half open. Bill Allard had been right-Auerbach had phoned to accept the offer of VBI assistance before Sam and I had left VSP headquarters-apparently stimulated by Hillstrom’s findings. But I had no idea if Auerbach had felt pressured to do so or had merely yielded to need and curiosity. Knowing the truth, I thought, would be crucial to our getting along, so I’d done some fast homework, leaving Sammie to call the team together and write up a quick report.

The police department is located on the west side of Route 100, just below the northernmost-and larger-of Stowe’s two villages. It is a modest building, one-and-a-half stories, red brick, and set deeply enough into a hollow by the side of the road that by the time you notice the fire and rescue station next door, you’ve already passed it by.

I pulled into the parking lot, hemmed in by stained, craggy walls of piled-up snow, and got out of my car, enjoying the cold on my face after the steady blast from the heater.

I’d passed the PD’s driveway once already on this trip-after arranging for lodging at a local motel-to explore the village’s small, busy, appealingly plain heart farther on, hoping to put into some perspective all the information I’d just acquired.

It had been a worthwhile detour. Along the twelve-mile drive north of Interstate 89, I’d been struck by a growing commercial momentum on both sides of Route 100. The gas stations, tourist shops, motels, and restaurants had become increasingly serried, creating the visual equivalent of an encroaching critical mass. The village itself was the natural apogee of all this, teeming with a blur of multihued cars and people. But despite the activity and some of the tacky architecture leading up to it, the unpretentious town of a hundred years earlier showed through, clapboarded, useful, and blandly functional. As background to the colorful Spandex and insulated ski clothes, stalwart behind the endless stream of high-end SUVs, the buildings held their own against most modern influences, content to look as they had for decades.

And crouching to the west, white-capped and gleaming against a shimmering blue sky, was the stimulus for it all. Mount Mansfield hovered like a multipeaked Olympus, majestic, daunting, both maternal and threatening, its sheer bulk endowing it with indefinable deeper meaning.

Knowing that somewhere high on its slopes, an old, near mummified corpse had mysteriously been deposited made me wonder for whom that meaning boded ill.

I entered the police department lobby, unbuttoned my coat in the sudden warmth, and stepped up to a counter blocked by a sliding glass window.

“Hi. Is the chief in?” I asked a slim, middle-aged woman through the open half of the window.

She looked up from her typing and smiled. “May I have your name?”

“Joe Gunther. Vermont Bureau of Investigation.”

She stared at me for what felt like a long count. “I’m sorry?”

I extracted my new shield from an inner pocket and showed it to her. “Joe Gunther. I’m a cop.”

She rose and approached the window, her face expressing pure wonder. “No… I mean, yeah, but what was the other thing-the Bureau?”

I gave her the badge for closer scrutiny. “The Vermont Bureau of Investigation-new statewide unit.”

She returned it cheerfully, seemingly recovered. “Neat. I just never heard of it. The chief expecting you?”

“Not by name, but he knows we’re coming.”

Looking mystified again, she said, “I’ll check,” and disappeared.

Moments later, a tall, large, barrel-chested bald man dressed in a white uniform shirt and black cargo pants entered the reception area and stuck out a meaty hand. “Joe Gunther? Frank Auerbach. Glad to meet you at last. You’re a famous guy.”

“So was Son of Sam.”

He laughed and waved me through the inner door. “Oh, oh-wobbly self-image there. People giving you shit about this VBI thing?”

I thought back to the woman at the counter. “Assuming they even know about it.”

He led me into an office just off the small dispatch area. It was cramped, unassuming, and had two doors he left wide open, one looking out into the building’s central hallway, the other leading to the squad room in back. There was a symbolism here that apparently reflected the man.

“This is your first case, right?” he asked. “For VBI, I mean.”

I sat in the chair he offered me. “Yes, and I’m sorry about the way you were approached. Must’ve seemed a little lacking in subtlety.”

He shrugged. “Didn’t bother me. You want some coffee?”

“No, thanks.”

“The way I figure it,” he resumed, pouring himself a cup from a Thermos parked on his windowsill, “you people have resources I don’t, and you’ll be falling all over yourselves trying to make a good impression. You are going to give me the spiel about how I get all the credit afterward, aren’t you?”

I gave him a hapless look. So far, I instinctively liked this man, but with that comment I wasn’t sure I could distinguish bluntness from irony-I didn’t know him well enough yet. “That is the spiel. We’ll work under your command, talk to the press only by your say-so, and vanish as soon as you don’t want us anymore.”

He nodded. “Sounds okay. ’Course, BCI already does all that.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “with the difference that they wouldn’t actually work under your command. They would work with you. Not that it usually makes any real difference,” I added quickly, sensing he might still send us packing. “But it’s a point I’m sure you can appreciate. In any case, this isn’t a competition. I didn’t dream up this unit, and didn’t apply for it when it was born. But I ended up joining because I think it’s right to have a major crimes squad that’s open to all that’re qualified. Again, that’s not meant to be disrespectful to the VSP-just more democratic. And the best of BCI will end up in VBI anyhow.”

Frank Auerbach smiled broadly, obviously enjoying himself. “Okay. That’s great. Between you and me, I don’t really care. I’m happy where I am, and I’m happy for any help I can get. How you and the state police duke it out is your business. Just so long as you don’t make me the kewpie doll,” he added, his smile fading.

“That’s the deal,” I promised.

“Good,” he concluded. “How many people are you bringing on board?”

“Five right now, including me. More later if we’ve got them. And our own special prosecutor to help us through the shoals, especially if we end up in Canada, and since both the governor and the commissioner are cheering us on, money won’t be a problem, either.”

“Any of you speak French? It’s going to be a pain in the ass otherwise.”

“Supposedly Paul Spraiger does, late of the Burlington PD. We’ve never worked together before.”

“I know Paul,” Auerbach said. “He’s good-quiet, real smart. What about Jean Deschamps? You done any digging yet?”

I shook my head. “Despite our pushy manners, I didn’t want to presume. We’d like you to take the lead on how to proceed. I should add, though, that my boss, Bill Allard, has a contact with the Sûreté in Sherbrooke-one of their investigators he met at a conference.” I handed him a slip of paper. “Gilles Lacombe. Apparently, they hit it off, and Lacombe was singing the praises of cross-jurisdictional cooperation.”

“Thanks. I already sent faxes to the Mounties, the Sherbrooke police, and the Sûreté,” Auerbach said, taking the note, “asking them to check their old files, but given the way this is looking, we’ll need all the inside help we can get. I’m assuming Hillstrom told you what she told me, that the guy’s probably been dead fifty years or more.”

“She did. What gets me, though, is why he was frozen in the first place, why he’s surfaced now, and how the hell did he get on the mountain?”

“Airplane?” Auerbach suggested. “He was found in a pretty deep hole, and there were no signs anyone dragged him there.”

I was glad to have that suspicion confirmed. “You have an airport just north of here, don’t you?”

“Morrisville, yeah, like a dozen others all over Vermont. Morrisville is unmanned at night and doesn’t have a tower, so we’ll check it out. But you gotta wonder: If all you’re going to do with a dead body is dump it across town, why go to all the trouble of airmailing it? We got dumpsters like everyone else. Plus, the guy was a Canadian,” he added meaningfully.

I saw his point. “I’m guessing you didn’t find any spare body parts on the mountain.”

Frank Auerbach shook his head. “No, but we also haven’t done a total site search. It was getting late when he was found, and I wanted to know what Hillstrom would say first. The area’s been cordoned off-not that it matters way up there-but it needs a better look. Come to think of it, it’s our busy season and I’m pretty shorthanded, so that might be where you and your guys could really be a help. Are they in good enough shape to hit the mountain? It’s not much-a gondola ride most of the way up and the Hazardous Terrain Evacuation Team will be running the show-it would free me up something wicked.”

“I’ll ask them,” I said slowly. “I can probably guarantee at least three of us. How much is ‘not much’?”

“You’ll have snowshoes and crampons. It’s not like a stroll in the park, but it’s not too bad, and it’s a hell of a view. Basically, if you’re even near fit-like you-it’s no sweat, and the hazardous terrain folks really know their stuff.”

“Yeah,” I said, wondering if he wasn’t overselling this a bit. “I’ve heard about them.”

“Great.” He rose to his feet like a happy used-car dealer. “By the way, what do I tell BCI when they come knocking?”

“Indirectly, they already have,” I answered, thinking Stanton might’ve known what he was doing after all. “One of my team is a BCI liaison-Tom Shanklin.”

Auerbach glanced at his watch. “I know him, too. Sounds like you got good people.”

My mind flashed to Willy Kunkle and I kept my mouth shut. The chief gathered together the fanned-out contents of a folder from his desk. “It’s too late to go up Mansfield today, but we could make it tomorrow morning, if that’s not moving too fast.”

We returned to the reception/dispatch area. “No. Everyone’ll be based at the Commodore Inn, just down the street, ’cept maybe Shanklin and Spraiger, who live close enough to commute. I thought that’d be best till we figured out what’s ahead. What time you want to meet?”

“Let’s say oh-seven-hundred hours at the fire and rescue building next door. Give us time to run through a few things before heading out.” He handed me the folder. “That’s what we got so far, by the way-scene photos, initial findings, and Hillstrom’s report. A little bedside reading.”

We shook hands, and I headed back into the cold.

From the outside, the Commodore Inn’s most striking aspect is an enormous sloping roof-vast, broad, and gently angled-projecting far out in front of the building’s entrance to form a deep carport. In the winter, it is all the more impressive for the thick mantle of snow coating it like icing, making the hotel vaguely resemble a long, low cave sliced into an otherwise frozen landscape. The inn gets its name from a three-acre pond out back, which in the summer plays host to weekly model-boat regattas, a selling point played up by an assortment of life rings, buoys, netting, and other sailing paraphernalia that hangs from the walls and ceiling of the bar and dining room out back.

I didn’t head that way, however, choosing instead a long hallway to the left off the lobby and a room about halfway down its length. As arranged earlier, waiting for me there were the first vital signs of the Vermont Bureau of Investigation-Sammie Martens, Willy Kunkle, Paul Spraiger, and Tom Shanklin-gathered around the room like card players expecting the banker.

I removed my coat and draped it over a chair, crossing the room to shake hands with both Shanklin and Spraiger. “I just left the Stowe PD,” I explained to all of them. “Chief Auerbach was very receptive and spoke well of Tom and Paul, which I hope is a good sign. I take it you’ve all introduced yourselves to each other?”

Everyone either nodded or didn’t disagree. It was my experience from working with other special units that conviviality comes slowly, delayed by a professional caution that sometimes borders on suspicion. Cops are a clannish bunch, dependent on one another for understanding, support, and sometimes their lives. It is a strong, long-lasting bond, of necessity forgiving of quirky personalities, but it takes time to form, since its foundation is trust, rather than simple compatibility. I noticed that Willy had parked himself in a far corner behind a small round table, removed and unapproachable. Sammie, despite her professional and personal ties to him, was perched on the low dresser across the room, next to the silent TV set. She knew the unspoken rules, knew Willy’s prickly ways, and knew to protect herself from them in a meeting with new acquaintances.

Shanklin and Spraiger were the unknowns. The first-short-haired, square-jawed, and military in bearing-seemed the most uncomfortable, as if fearing we’d be asking him to pass some rite of initiation. Spraiger was more unusual. Sitting comfortably in a chair with his legs crossed, he exuded an aura of utter stillness, bringing to mind either a shrink or a sage.

“This is obviously not how VBI was designed to come out of the gates,” I continued, “with Willy and Tom serving under their own colors. But starting as a mixed bag is kind of fitting. For the most part, we exist to integrate with other departments, so now we’re a polyglot ourselves.”

“And with zero credibility,” Willy added in a low growl from his core.

Every head in the room turned toward him.

“No problem there,” I answered, pretending he’d voiced a pertinent comment. “We have to start somewhere and our role is real enough. Auerbach’s so hard up for manpower, he’d like our help in a detailed search of the mountain site at oh-seven-hundred hours tomorrow morning, along with their hazardous terrain team. It’ll be a good way to get to know these folks and might get us some more information. I take it everyone’s read the report Sammie prepared on the case so far?”

“What’s the theory on the missing feet and arm?” Paul Spraiger asked quietly.

“Right now, we’re thinking they broke off, maybe when the body was dropped from an aircraft.”

“Implying a possible Canadian departure point that might be a red herring,” Tom Shanklin suggested, touching on what Auerbach and I had discussed.

“Possibly,” I agreed.

“Is there anything so far linking Jean Deschamps to Stowe, or even the U.S.?” he asked.

“His dead body,” Willy said glumly.

Again, there was a slight lull in the conversation, which I quickly filled, wishing Willy would stop acting like Oscar the Grouch. “Sad but true. Possession in this case is ten-tenths of the law-unless we can prove Deschamps was killed in Canada, he’s ours.”

“So, we’re going to have to work both sides of the border,” Spraiger suggested.

“That’s how it looks now,” I said. “The Sherbrooke police, the Mounties, and the Sûreté du Québec have been contacted for any information, but if Hillstrom’s right about the time of death, I don’t see them breaking into a big sweat over this.”

“Depending on who Deschamps was,” Sammie corrected.

“Right-which I hope we’ll learn tomorrow.”

“So what’s the plan?” Shanklin asked.

“That’s up to Auerbach,” I answered. “My guess is we’ll be looking into Deschamps’s history, trying to find out if and when he last entered the U.S. legally, interviewing old-timers here and in Canada to see if we can pick up a trail, checking airfields and all air traffic control radars for any mysterious, late-night flights, talking to the Stowe mountain folks to try to pin down when the body might’ve been put in place, and anything else you can think of. Unless we get some eighty-year-old pilot who shows up at the door and says, ‘Book me, Danno,’ I think we’ll be here for a while. This trail may be about as cold as it can get.”

“Great,” Willy muttered. “And while we run around looking like nobody can live without us, whoever planted this stiff will make it crystal clear why he did it. Seems to me it’d be smarter to just sit tight and see what happens.”

Spraiger, the French-speaker with the thoughtful air, considered Willy’s point carefully. “Unless the body wasn’t put there for us. Someone else could hear a message through the media coverage that we wouldn’t recognize, such as, ‘I did this once. I can do it again’ or, ‘I’m on your tail.’”

To his credit, Willy recognized the potential wisdom of this and so lapsed into silence.

I stood up from the edge of the bed and checked my watch. “Okay, let’s leave it there for now. It’s still early-use the evening to explore the town, get something to eat, maybe get better acquainted. Tom and Paul, I know you both have families and’ll be commuting, but if you want to hang out a couple of hours, feel free. It might be our last downtime for a while. I’ll be here reading the case file in case anyone wants to talk.

“Willy?” I asked as the rest of them headed for the door.

He’d stayed put, still wedged in his corner, looking at me with a sardonic smile. “Yeah, I know-gotta stay after class.”

I waited until the others had left before taking Sammie’s place on the low dresser, facing him across the room.

“What’s the lecture gonna be?” he asked. “Good attitude making for good teamwork?”

I was so used to him after all these years, I actually laughed. “The day you give anyone a good attitude, I’ll start watching my back. I figure this bunch’ll get used to you just like the old one did.”

“I may not be rid of the old one,” he reminded me.

I pursed my lips for a moment before telling him, “I wouldn’t be so sure. You flunk out here, you might not have anything to fall back on. I don’t think Brandt’ll take your shit for long-not without a buffer.”

He didn’t look impressed. “Right-Joe the buffer. Why do you keep doing that? Saving my ass… What d’you get out of it, beside a holiness medal from people like Sam?”

I paused before answering, hoping I understood myself enough to be truthful. “That may be part of it, although everyone else thinks I’m an idiot. I’m not sure-I was thinking just recently it maybe had to do with my not having kids, and your being a good example of why that had been a really smart move.”

He laughed and scratched his ear with his good hand. “With that fatherly approach, you may be right.”

“You’re a bright guy, Willy,” I continued more seriously. “And a better man than you admit, especially to yourself. I don’t want to see that wasted just because you’re a social misfit. Maybe I believe it would make me less of a human being if I let you slide, or maybe it’s because I want to be around when you finally wake up and realize what you’ve got to offer. That would be the ultimate last laugh.”

“One you’ll never live to enjoy,” he said, his grimness turned inward.

“Who knows?” I countered. “You don’t drink anymore, I haven’t heard of you beating on anyone lately, you work hard and get results, and you didn’t turn me down when I suggested joining this crew. Why is that, if you’re so convinced you’re worthless?”

He scowled at me, unhappy at having the tables turned. “Somebody had to cramp your style.”

I ignored the diversion. “Sam seems to think you’ve got something to offer.”

He could have come back with another one-liner-and would have in the old days. But I was right. He was in slow evolution, growing like a thwarted, water-starved plant toward whatever light he could see-including this job.

And he knew it.

He got up abruptly, graceful despite the useless, limp arm, which he kept from flopping around by leaving his left hand shoved into his pants pocket. “We done here?”

I looked at him for a moment.

“We may be just beginning.”