The sniper's wife

Chapter 8

Sammie Martens parked in the narrow driveway behind Joe Gunther's car and killed the engine. Gunther lived in a converted carriage house tucked behind a huge Victorian pile on one of Brattleboro's residential streets. The town was littered with such ornate buildings, in both the high-and low-rent districts-remnants of a past industrial age when New England and its dozens of sooty redbrick communities pumped their commodities into a growing, hungry, affluent society. Now the former showpiece homes of bosses and middle managers ran the gamut from private residences to run-down apartment buildings, depending on how the town's neighborhoods had settled out.

It was late, and Sammie knew she had no real reason for being here, that nothing could be gained from it, but the lights showing through Gunther's windows encouraged her nevertheless. After all, it was the nature of Joe's character, and of how he'd encouraged them all to speak freely with him, that had prompted her to come here in the first place.

She swung out of the car into the sharp evening air and closed the door softly behind her. The carriage house was small enough that it reminded her of a toy railroad model, or something designed for dolls-seemingly an odd kind of place for an old cop to live, unless you knew him.

Gunther wasn't cut from the Marine Corps model of square-jawed law enforcement, although he had that military experience in his past, including time in combat. If anything, given her aggressive style, Sammie fit that image better. Instead, Gunther could almost be fatherly: quiet, thoughtful, slow to anger or to rebuke, and unusually attentive to his people's personal dilemmas. He had periodically gone to extremes to keep Willy out of trouble, but he'd also watched out for Sammie's well-being over the years, as he had most of the people who'd ever worked with him.

Willy had groused to her occasionally that the "Old Man," in his words, was compensating for having no kids or wife, and that he should mind his own business. Sammie not only disagreed, but knew the comment had more to do with Willy's shortcomings than with Gunther's. Joe didn't have kids or a wife, true enough, but he had been married long ago to a woman who'd died of cancer, and was involved with another, for well over a decade now, with whom he had a devoted if quirky relationship-including not only separate residences, but also absences lasting for weeks on end when she was working at her lobbyist job up in Montpelier. Their alliance was obviously something only the two of them fully understood, but it seemed to work quite well.

Sammie could only envy them there. Her love life had been as turbulent and dreary as Joe's had been placid, and her present involvement with Willy hardly seemed proof of a cure.

The front door opened to her knock and Joe Gunther stood before her with a plane in his hand and wood shavings sprinkled across the front of his pants. "Hi, Sam," he said, unperturbed by the late hour. "Come on in. I was just goofing off in the shop."

He'd converted a small barn off the back of the house into a woodworking shop. It was a newfound hobby for a man who used to only read and listen to classical music on those rare evenings he wasn't working late. Sammie found it endearing, imagining her boss as a late-blooming elf, priming his talents to make toys for Santa. Except that she also knew it was largely a front. For all his softspoken ways and seeming imperturbability, Joe Gunther was actually more of a Clydesdale: an unstoppable force who compensated for a lack of genius with a doggedness second to none. Sammie had seen him plow through adversity, pain, and personal loss with stamina and courage she could only imagine.

"You want a cup of coffee?" he asked, ushering her in.

"No. I'm okay."

He took her jacket and hung it on a nearby hook and invited her into the small living room around the corner, whose back door, standing ajar, led directly into the wood shop. He gestured to her to take a seat and, placing the plane on the coffee table between them, settled into an old armchair, scattering a few wood shavings onto the rug.

"You heard from Willy yet?" he asked.

"No," she admitted.

"Which is why you're here," he suggested gently.

She looked at him ruefully. "Yeah. I'm sorry to be a pain. I'm just worried."

"So am I," he admitted, which surprised and comforted her. "I even called Detective Ogden again to see if he knew anything. Which he didn't," he added in response to her hopeful expression.

"So, what're we supposed to do?" she asked.

Gunther shrugged. "There are options. Technically, he's AWOL, so we could act on that. For the moment, I've just put him on bereavement leave, which is stretching things a bit for an ex-spouse. But we're not too busy right now, and the rest of us can handle his caseload, so I don't see the harm, and I sure don't see blowing the whistle on him."

"And in the meantime, we wait?" she asked, her voice rich with impatience and frustration.

He nodded. "Yup. He's got to work this out."

Sammie slapped her leg with her hand. "Work what out? I understand he feels guilty about messing up their marriage, but that was years ago. From what he told me, she wasn't the most stable person in the world to start with, and he wasn't the one who put her on drugs. I mean, Christ knows he's no saint, but it takes two to tango. What's he doing down there?"

Gunther smiled softly. "Seeking absolution, I would guess. He's a man driven by devils. By guilt now, anger when he went to Vietnam, self-loathing when he hit the bottle. Right now, I figure he's hoping he can get himself off the hook somehow, even if he's convinced he'll never succeed. If we're lucky, he'll come home when he runs out of gas."

Sammie stared at him in silence. He laughed and held up a hand. "All right. That's a little too easy, but don't you forget how you felt about him in the old days. I'm really happy you two are together, but our Willy is a handful. You should remember that and protect yourself a little."

Sammie didn't answer, choosing to fix her eyes on the dark fireplace across from her.

"Right?" he repeated.

She glanced at him, slightly irritated. But she knew him well, having worked under him for more than ten years, first at the Brattleboro PD with Willy and then for this new outfit, and she knew he didn't say such things without reason. She swallowed her defensive first reaction and considered what he'd said. It was true that when she and Willy were first on Joe's detective squad, they'd fought like dogs, protecting their turf and taking swipes at each other at the slightest provocation. They laughed a little edgily about that now, when they were feeling sure of each other, but it was hard sometimes not to believe that their current affection was merely the same old passion with a twist. Willy was sometimes hard to love.

That thought process finally made her nod in response to Joe's question. "I guess so. You've known him a long time. Did he ever tell you about Vietnam?"

Gunther thought awhile. "Sort of. I was able to fill in some of the blanks from my own time in combat. He did a lot of long-range recon work, deep into the enemy's back pocket. It got pretty ugly sometimes-guys making up their own rules as they went and not saying much when they got back. I know his nickname was the Sniper, if that tells you anything. I guess it described his attitude as much as any specialty he had. And he wasn't alone there. The war had fallen apart, the American public was sick of it, the rest of the world thought we were the pits. The Kennedys and Malcolm X and Martin Luther King had been assassinated one by one. Urban riots were the norm. You're young enough that it all looks kind of quaint and antiseptic now. But there were serious doubts we'd survive as a nation. When Willy went off to fight, returning vets were already being met at the airports by protesters spitting on them and calling them baby killers. Those were very tough years."

"Why did he go, then?" she asked.

"I always thought it was because he was ready to kill somebody-he just had sense enough to want to do it legally."

Sammie stared at him wide-eyed. "He told you that?"

Gunther shook his head. "No. He had a tough time growing up. I don't know all the details, but by his late teens, I guess he was a basket case. He tried the cops first. Apparently, that wasn't enough. The military suited his needs better anyway. It was a post-World War Two army, transfixed by the Great Red Menace-basically the same bunch who'd trained me earlier. They weren't the sensitive guys who let you enlist to 'Be all that You Can Be.' Back then, it was kill the gook. Simple.

"Willy allowed himself to be turned into the equivalent of a human knife blade, probably hoping for some sort of cathartic release. Except that it only complicated things and added to the baggage he was already carrying."

"He is pretty certifiable sometimes," Sammie said.

But Joe shook his head. "My back pocket psychology is that we're all giving him the support today he craved growing up, but since he's literally been to the wars and back, he doesn't know how to accept it. He needs it, wants it, and hangs around to receive it, but he'll flip you the finger when you pony it up because he sees all dependence as a sign of weakness."

Sammie pondered that for a while, a frown growing across her face. "Sounds like I got stuck with another Froot Loop." She smacked her forehead with the heel of her hand in mock penitence. "Stupid, stupid, stupid."

Gunther laughed, but his eyes were serious. "You really believe that?"

"What's not to believe?" she asked him. "You're describing a guy who needs help but who kicks whoever's helping him in the teeth so he can maintain his selfimage. That sound like a pick of the litter to you?"

"It wouldn't be if it weren't a work in progress. He is improving."

She wanted to argue the point, but she couldn't. It was true. Willy had learned to control his alcoholism through sheer willpower. His more flagrantly self-destructive behavior was largely a thing of the past. When they were alone together, he'd exhibited tenderness and warmth she'd never thought him capable of in the old days. And, as naive as it sounded even to her, there was the art-the pencil sketches he did, often while on stakeout, quickly and efficiently with that powerful, dexterous right hand, turning out images of subtle beauty.

Still, it pissed her off. "Why can't I fall for a normal guy?"

Joe Gunther gazed at her affectionately. "Because you're not a normal woman."

"Perfect. I really wanted to hear that. What was Mary like?" she asked after a pause.

He thought a moment before answering, "There's a danger right now of just seeing her as a junkie loser. But when I met her, she was naive and shy and damaged and a real sweetheart. And she worshiped Willy, probably for all the wrong reasons. The way that marriage ended burned both of them terribly-her because of the betrayal she'd suffered, and him because it was the latest and biggest example of his failure as a human being. I don't know what Mary was up to in New York, but it was more than just being a victim. 'Cause she was smart, too, and, after Willy, good and angry. Whatever she was planning by going down there, you can bet that getting even was part of it."

Sammie shook her head. "I just hope he's not the target, even from the grave." At around the same moment, back in New York's Lower East Side, Willy Kunkle stood quietly in the shadows of an empty warehouse, hidden behind a concrete buttress, watching a small piece of urban theater play out at the end of the block. There, along a darker stretch of East Broadway, a young man paced the sidewalk, a quirky combination of self-confidence and nervousness. Dressed in the quasi-uniform of baggy pants, sneakers, watch cap, and loose logo jacket, he bounced back and forth like an eager dog prowling a dock, awaiting the return of its owner's boat. But the boats, in this case passing cars, went back and forth in a blur, seemingly ignoring him.

Until one slowed, veered slightly to get out of traffic, and then stopped. The young man's body language instantly changed. Now diffident, almost surly, he reluctantly approached the car as if it had a bad odor, and condescended to bend ever so slightly at the waist to address the driver through the passenger-side window. There was a short conversation, after which the young man-a drug dealer's so-called steerer-straightened dismissively and gestured to the driver to pull over to the entrance of an alleyway directly across from Willy's observation post. His role fulfilled, the steerer returned to keeping a lookout for both customers and cops.

Willy continued watching as a small boy suddenly appeared on a bike, despite the late hour and poor visibility, and rode up and down the street without apparent purpose-the mobile perimeter sentry, activated by the driver emerging from his car. This man, white, conservatively dressed, clearly on edge, looked up and down the sidewalk before crossing to the alleyway and pausing at its opening. Willy extracted a small, inexpensive telescope he kept in his coat pocket for such occasions, and focused on the dimly lit scene.

Barely visible, the outline of a man appeared from the gloom beyond the buyer. The two conferred briefly, the dealer taking something from the buyer, after which he reached above his head to one of the upper support brackets of the roll-down metal curtain protecting a shop window next to him, and retrieved a small package-all in a gesture as smooth and fast as a hummingbird sipping from a flower.

The buyer took the drugs, quickly broke away, returned to his car, and joined his brethren in the flow of traffic. The whole thing took about two minutes.

As a final sign of returning normalcy, the underage bicyclist rolled to a stop opposite his perch barely within sight of the steerer, and waited for the next heads up.

Willy smiled and pocketed the telescope, having found what he was after. He separated himself from his hiding spot, walked down the side street, crossed East Broadway, and approached the steerer at an angle that put the young man between him and the opening to the alleyway.

Like any midrange occupant of the urban food chain, the steerer noticed Willy early and warily, stopped his restless weaving, and turned to face the threat, while balancing on the balls of his sneakered feet, ready for flight. One hand drifted toward the right-hand pocket of his jacket.

Willy shook his head from a distance. "Don't do that."

The steerer hesitated. Close up, he couldn't have been older than sixteen, all the hardness he could muster twitching around his mouth and nostrils, but only fleeting in his eyes. He could clearly see that the strange-looking, asymmetrical man coming toward him was no one to bluff.

"You the man?" he asked.

Willy smiled slightly. "You want to find out?"

"I didn't do nuthin'."

"Then we're just having a conversation." Willy extracted a photograph from his pocket and showed it to the steerer. "Tell me about this."

It was the evidence picture of the package of drugs found next to Mary's body, labeled with the caricature of the red devil.

"I don't know about that shit."

"Maybe your main man does in the alleyway."

The steerer's eyes widened slightly. "What're you talkin' about?"

"You pull 'em in, you and the kid on the bike keep an eye out, and the third guy does the deal. Why're we talkin' about this? Eyeball the picture and tell me about the red devil. Then I'm gone and you're back in business."

The steerer pressed his lips together in thought. "That's it?"

Willy pretended to be losing patience. "I'm being polite here, showing you respect. I coulda gone straight to your man in the alley, shined a light in his face, grabbed his goods from above the security gate, and showed him you can't do your job, but I didn't do that, did I? You wanna screw that up?"

The youngster showed his age by clenching his fists and stamping one foot. "Shit, man. You fuckin' with me?"

Willy held out the picture again. "Tell me about the red devil. That's it."

The steerer finally made up his mind with a quick glance over his shoulder. "We don't do that shit."

"We talkin' in circles here?" Willy asked menacingly.

"No, man. I mean it ain't ours. That comes from uptown. Diablo."

"That's what they call it? Where uptown?"

"A hundred and fifty-fifth. The Old Polo Grounds." That caught Willy by surprise. The Polo Grounds were only twenty blocks south of where he'd met Bob earlier that day. The old neighborhood.

"Who sells it?"

The young man took a step backward, shaking his head vigorously. "No way, man. You asked what I know. That's it. I ain't tellin' you more."

Willy didn't care. If the kid had given him a name, it might well have been wrong or a street alias of little value. The key was to know where Diablo called home. From there, Willy could track it back to its maker.

And he knew just the man to consult.

He slipped the photograph back into his pocket. "You've been a scholar and a gentleman. I will go to the oracle."

The kid stared at him suspiciously. "What is that?"

Willy paused and smiled as he turned away. "Good question. I hope it's the other shoe dropping."