Occam's razor

19

Sammie Martens came out to greet us in the parking lot before Ron had even rolled to a complete stop. “You want to take a post-trip pee, you better use the hallway bathroom, ’cause Derby’s already in the chief’s office waiting. You are not to visit your office first, you are not to take off your coat, you are not to pass Go.”

“That good, huh?”

“Looks like it. Thought you’d like to see this first.” She handed me a copy of the paper, which I shoved into my pocket unread.

“Also,” she added, giving me a small folded piece of notepaper, “Willy gave me this for you. Said it might come in handy.”

I followed her to the department’s side entrance, down the short hallway into the central area between dispatch and the chief’s office, and entered the latter without bothering to knock.

Jack Derby rose from his chair. Brandt, behind his desk, stayed put.

“I hear we have problems,” I said, removing my coat and hanging it by the door.

“That’s putting it mildly,” Derby agreed, so tense his teeth almost clenched. “Do you have any idea how Katz got this story?”

“I haven’t had a chance to read it yet,” I answered blandly, sitting down, and by example forcing him to do the same.

“Well, I have, and it sounds like he was briefed better than I was.”

Tony Brandt added in an almost lazy voice, which I imagined only added to Derby’s irritation, “I told Jack we’d do an internal-see if we can plug the leak.”

Derby scratched his forehead. “I have one felony murder case already under way and another in the pipeline, assuming you find the killer. I do not need to be watching my back while I’m juggling these two, wondering who the hell’s going to be sticking it to me next. I do not want guilty people going free because some cop can’t resist seeing his anonymous words in print.”

It was a little pompous and more than slightly disingenuous. Both Brandt and I knew perfectly well that any potential future trials were far less imperiled by such leaks than were Derby’s hopes for reelection. His passion, as a result, was somewhat disappointing. I’d voted for him when he’d first run for State’s Attorney, largely because I’d liked his pledge to take politics out of his office. I hadn’t actually believed it, of course-I’ve been around too long for that-but after years of working with the imperious James Dunn, I had hoped for something better in his successor. It was beginning to look as if I’d only ended up with something different.

“What’s Jim Reynolds’s take on it?” I asked innocently, simultaneously unfolding Willy’s note and glancing at its contents.

Derby stared at me as if I’d just fallen on my head. “What the hell do you think it is? He’s fit to be tied.”

He suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, aware of what I’d lured him into, and quickly added, “At least I imagine he is. I would be, in his place.”

He got up again and began pacing. “What the hell is it with Reynolds, anyway? Do you actually have anything on him?”

Brandt looked at me to respond. “We have growing concerns,” I said. “His name keeps coming up, like it just did in Portland. Right now, the use of a car like his at the murder scene looks like a clumsy frame, but someone did break into his office, he did know Resnick from that case in Maine, which also involved illegal haz mat, and according to this”-I waved Willy’s note in the air-“while he told me he was at his apartment in Montpelier the night Resnick was killed, his nosy neighbor just told Kunkle that his car wasn’t in its parking place till just before dawn.”

Derby ran both hands through his hair. “Meaning what, for God’s sake? That he snuck down here, stole a car that looked like his, fitted it with bogus plates to match his own, and then knocked off a guy in the one section of town that probably has more windows overlooking it than your average New York tenement?”

Neither Brandt nor I said a word.

Derby stopped pacing. “All right, all right. Let’s move on. From the reports I’ve read so far, it looks like both the Resnick and Croteau killings are beginning to rub shoulders. What’s going on there?”

“So far, it just looks typical of a small town with a small underworld, where everybody steps on everybody else’s toes. Billy Conyer, for example, who we think was one of the three who killed Resnick, was a friend of Brenda Croteau’s. We also have witnesses in one case who feature as acquaintances in the other.”

Derby looked irritated. “Great. McNeil’s going to have a field day with that.” He suddenly stared at me. “Your girlfriend’s already giving me enough grief as it is about Tharp’s motivation.”

I felt my face flush and was about to respond when he cut me off. “Save it, Joe. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m getting too worked up here. What’s important is that we try to keep things as uncontaminated as possible. I don’t want the Tharp case derailed because of some extraneous poking around by you into Resnick or-God forbid-Jim Reynolds. Remember that, okay? Just keep things delineated. And give your people the same message, especially Kunkle. If I hear that someone on either my witness list or McNeil’s has been harassed by him, I’ll cut him off at the knees.”

“We’ll conduct the investigation as we see fit,” I said, finally allowing my anger to show. “It’s not in your purview to tell us who we can and cannot interview.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Brandt smiling slightly.

Derby bent toward me, like a teacher addressing an errant student. “I’d be careful there. My ‘purview,’ as you call it, cuts pretty God-damn wide.” He straightened suddenly, as if stung, and ran his hand down across his face. “That’s not what I said, anyhow. I said ‘harass,’ and I referred to extraneous poking around. I did not tell you how to do your job. I know you think I’m being a jerk here-I can see it in your face. I’m young, I’ve been a prosecutor for all of three years, and I’m up for reelection soon. That makes me the asshole. Fine. But the buck stops with me-I’m the guy who’s supposed to put Tharp in jail. If that doesn’t happen because of some mistake from this department, it’s still going to be my butt in the sling. That’s why I want things done right.”

I weighed my options, trying to temper my anger by recognizing that while his style was lousy, his points had some merit. But I finally settled for a simple, “Can I go now?”

He seemed as startled by my lack of reaction as if I’d really let him have it, making his suddenly conciliatory tone all the more awkward. “Of course. I’m sorry I went overboard. I shouldn’t blow off steam like that-we’re a team, after all. We just have a lot riding on this.”

“I’m sure you do,” I said as I headed for the door.

I found Willy Kunkle in the squad room, reading a book. “Thanks for the info about the neighbor. What made you think of that?”

Willy marked his place with a thumb. “Old-fashioned police work. Just noticed nobody else had done it.”

“Is the neighbor credible?”

“Enough. Retired schoolteacher, working on the great American piece of shit. Stays up half the night looking for inspiration. Seems to do it staring out the window, though, ’cause he knew the habits of everyone within sight. I quizzed him on it.”

“Any hint of a girlfriend tucked away?”

“For Reynolds? Nope. I asked. The teacher’s never seen anyone other than the Mrs. and the kids and the standard politicos. And usually the senator stays put after lights out. That’s why this stuck in his memory.”

“So his car was parked early on, then vanished, then reappeared before dawn?”

“Yup. His guess was it was gone from about nine till four-thirty or so.”

“You ask Reynolds about it?”

“I figured that was your job.”

Tony Brandt found me in my office about ten minutes later and made a seat out of one of my low-profile filing cases. “You recovered?”

“Oh, sure. I just wanted to leave him dangling. He’s not the first prosecutor to have a hissy-fit. I just hope he improves with age.”

Brandt nodded in agreement. “Tell me more about Maine.”

“There isn’t much more. Looks like Reynolds was doing his lawyer thing, rounding up witnesses and the rest, when he came across Resnick, who was doing the same kind of contract work for Katahdin he was doing for Timson. The guy we talked to thought Reynolds probably caught wind of Resnick’s Mob connections and dropped him like a hot rock to make his case look better. Perfectly reasonable.”

Brandt looked disappointed. “What about Reynolds not being in his apartment the night Resnick died?”

“I just talked to Willy. The source sounds good. Whether Derby likes it or not, I’m going to have to ask Reynolds to explain it.”

“That’s fine,” he said. “Just fly low when you do. Jack asked me to issue a press statement about how Reynolds is no more a suspect than anyone else we look at during a case. It would probably help if Katz isn’t given any more than is necessary.”

“Speaking of which, are you going to look for the leak?”

“Yeah. I’m not at all happy about that, Derby or no Derby. We all use the press now and then to our own advantage, but this was way over the line. If I find the guy, he’ll be out of a job. What is your strategy going to be on the Resnick case?”

“Now that I’ve been given my marching orders?” I asked with a smile.

“Regardless.”

“Well, right now it seems like Billy Conyer’s our best inroad. Given his homebody personality and habits, at least one of his two co-killers must be local, or at least have local ties. Billy didn’t get around much. I was planning to organize an alibi dragnet, put the squeeze on anyone and everyone who had anything to do with him, and see what popped out.”

Brandt looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, “That’s probably what Derby’s most worried about.”

“Jesus, Tony-”

“I know, I know. Hold your horses. Do what you’ve got to. Just warn your troops to tread carefully. Derby may be wet behind the ears politically, but it won’t be good for any of us if Owen Tharp’s case gets thrown out of court on some technicality. Remember, if you start asking questions of people who’re planted in both the Resnick and Tharp cases, and one of them blabs something revealing about Tharp, that’s got to be shared, either with Derby or McNeil-if it looks like he could use it.” He slid off the filing cabinet and moved toward the door. “That’s the law. So watch out. That’s all I’m saying.”

I waited until he was gone and then rubbed my face vigorously with my hands, wondering what the hell else could go wrong.

As things turned out, I didn’t have to chase down Jim Reynolds to ask him about the night Phil Resnick was murdered. He called me, and he didn’t sound pleased.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

I took the phone away from my ear and looked at it, wondering how many other politicians were going to rake me over the coals today. I seriously considered hanging up on him.

“Shouldn’t you be asking Stan Katz that?” I asked instead. I had since read the article in the Reformer. It did make for some serious entertainment. Katz had done the writing himself, much to Alice Simms’s irritation, no doubt, and he’d done a good job. It had been suggestive to the very brink of libel, without falling over.

“I’m leaving Katz to my lawyer,” he blustered. “I want to find out what your beef is with me. I know a lot of cops are upset about my bill, but I thought you, of all people, were above this kind of character assassination.”

I almost laughed at the narcissism of it. I was looking into a homicide, and he thought I had an ax to grind over his bill. “Believe me, Senator, I couldn’t care less about what you’re doing up there. You want to get together, though, I’d be happy to oblige. I have some more questions to ask you.”

There was a surprised and wary silence at the other end. “What about?”

“I’d prefer to do it in person.”

Anger crept back into his voice. “Fine. I’ll be at the house tonight. Come at eight.” He hung up before I could answer.

Laura Reynolds opened the door, looking less than thrilled to see me. She was polite, though, and took my coat, showed me to the living room, and offered me something to drink. I declined, she happily abandoned me, and I sat alone by a crackling fire, surrounded by tasteful indirect lighting, soft carpeting, and furniture that looked like no child had ever thrown up on it. It was unusually pristine for a house full of kids. Then again, few of my house calls were to places with live-in help and heated garages.

Reynolds let me stew for a while, either testing me or trying to put me in my place. But I was content to enjoy the fire and the comfortable sofa, and spend the night there if necessary.

It wasn’t. He appeared fifteen minutes later, with no apology, and sat in a wingback opposite me, crossing his legs in a commanding manner-the lord of all around him.

“What’ve you got for me now, Lieutenant? My car been seen running people down again?”

“Where were you on the night Resnick died?” I asked bluntly, tiring of the theatrics.

He froze for a split second and then furrowed his brow. “Ah. You found out about that, did you?”

Brilliant, I thought. He’d headed me off at the pass, skipping a denial altogether.

“Where were you?” I repeated.

“At a clandestine political meeting, the nature of which I’d like not to disclose.”

“You won’t necessarily have to, if the other person or people involved can corroborate your being there.”

He tapped his chin with his fingertip and glanced up at the ceiling. “To reveal one would be to reveal the other. I’m afraid that would be too risky, especially given what’s already happened. I am sorry.”

I merely stared at him.

“Lieutenant, I know you told me earlier you couldn’t care less, but what I’m trying to do in Montpelier is to change something running all the way back to the state’s beginnings. That isn’t going to be easy. There are many people who think I’m right, but most of them can’t afford to admit it in public. That means my dealings with them have to take place discreetly, as on the night in question. That was the first such instance, as I’m sure my nosy neighbor told you. But it won’t be the last. Be prepared to hear him report all sorts of midnight sorties, because the back room deal-making has only just begun.”

“What was your relationship with Phil Resnick five years ago, during the Katahdin Trucking case?”

He smiled indulgently, getting on my nerves. “Right. The trip to Maine. My ‘relationship,’ as you call it, consisted of a single interview, during which I asked him about his working for the company. I discovered as a result that he would be playing no part in my defense strategy, and thus I never spoke with him again.”

“You found out he was tied to the Mob.”

Again, he beat me to it. “Correct,” he said simply.

“How was it Katahdin knew to hire you in the first place?”

“I’ve had experience in environmental law,” he said vaguely. “They could have chosen someone else. I never asked.”

“Why was your office broken into?”

“That’s why I hired Win Johnston. So far, I don’t know.”

“You must have suspicions. You don’t hire a private detective if you think some teenager was trying to steal a computer.”

“I’m a lawyer and a politician, and I’m cautious by nature. For all I know, it was a teenager, but I’ve learned not to make assumptions. That, I might add, is something you should learn.”

I stood up. “That’s not what I’m doing. I am trying to find out why you’re under every rock I kick over.”

He waved a hand at me. “If you’re leaving, Lieutenant, please don’t. I’d like to talk some more. Do you mind?”

I considered his offer. I’d gotten nowhere so far and had been about to leave pissed off and disappointed. Maybe, with a little time and flattery, his ego might get the better of him and let something slip. I sat back down.

Now he was Mister Sociability. “I’m sure my wife offered, but won’t you have a drink? A cognac, maybe, or a cup of coffee? I’m going to have a little something.”

“Sure. Coffee’d be fine.”

He rose, moved toward the back, and called out, “Honey, could you rustle up some coffee for the lieutenant?”

There was no response, which didn’t faze him in the slightest. He crossed the room to a large cabinet mounted into the wall and opened a pair of double doors to reveal a full bar. He poured something into an overlarge snifter and regained his seat.

“She shouldn’t be long,” he said soothingly, placing his drink by his side untouched.

He crossed his legs again. “I wanted to thank you for your testimony the other day. You were very good. You’ve obviously thought a great deal about your profession.”

“I’ve been at it a while.”

“That could be said of a lot of deadhead old-timers. You’ve learned the system inside out.” He suddenly laughed. “From both sides, given what that deputy AG tried to pull last year. You’ve made it work for you, and you’re widely respected as a result.”

“It was a governor’s pardon that got me off the hook with the AG. I would’ve been out of a job otherwise.”

He dismissed that. “Nonsense. It was common knowledge that one man used the rules of evidence to go after you for his own selfish interests. I happen to know the AG himself lobbied the governor on your behalf-and he wasn’t alone, either. You’re far more widely regarded than you know or admit. Let me ask you something: Even though it’s still being hammered out in committee, what do you think of my bill?”

“I don’t think it matters.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “Too much modesty can have the same effect as too little. Didn’t your mother ever tell you that?”

“No. But I wasn’t being modest anyhow. I don’t think it matters because I don’t think it’ll become law.”

He smiled thinly. “Why not?”

“You’ve taken advantage of some popular momentum due to Amos Melcourt killing those kids. You’ve also been allowed that momentum by people who’re taking their time to stop you dead in your tracks.”

“And who are they?”

Laura Reynolds entered the room bearing a small tray with a cup, some sugar, and a little pitcher of milk. She placed it on the table next to me without comment or eye contact.

“Thank you,” I said.

She glanced up, gave me a small nod, and left as quietly as she’d come. Reynolds acted as if she’d never been there, staring at me throughout, awaiting his answer-a man used to being served.

I fixed my coffee as I spoke. “You name it. You claim you’re thinking in terms of efficiency, the public good, and planning for the future. Almost every cop in uniform thinks of job security. You’re threatening that.”

“That’s not true. The number of police officers won’t necessarily change. Just the way they’re organized. They’ll all be in one department, with their leader ranked at cabinet level, and with the same access to the state budget as any other agency. They’ll have better pay, more benefits, and many more opportunities for advancement and diversity. If tagging moose is your thing, and you used to be stuck in the Burlington PD, in this new organization you can just ask for a transfer to the wildlife unit. Equipment will be first-rate, training will be improved, and the political clout will be as never before. It’s an absolute win-win situation. Occam’s Razor, practically applied.”

I wondered if he was trying to put me in my place. “Occam,” I answered, “was talking about theological philosophy, not employment concerns.”

He made a funny tucked-in gesture with his chin, as if I’d just punched him gently in the chest, which perhaps I had. During my short stint in college, I’d spent most of my time with my nose buried in books-including a few on philosophy and ethics.

I used his surprise to press him further. “Are you saying that part-time deputy sheriff who let Amos Melcourt slip by will have a job?”

A look of irritation crossed his face. “Of course there will be standards to meet. That’s only reasonable. You can’t have any woodchuck who chooses to just sign up.”

“Maybe not, but with the sixty-eight different employment possibilities we have right now, that woodchuck has a better chance of being hired than he would with your single police force. And all the guys who are currently in uniform but who might be just barely hanging on-they’re going to fight you with everything they’ve got. And that’s not even mentioning the pride factor. You really think the Green-and-Gold are going to tolerate being anything else? Being forced to be on a par with someone out of Bellows Falls or Brattleboro or Windsor?”

He shook his head tiredly, obviously bored by the very debate he’d set in motion. “Look, all that really doesn’t matter. The police, no matter who they are, don’t have a strong constituency in the Legislature. Once the public hears the details of the final bill and sees the logic behind it, all that naysaying will be identified as the narrow self-interest it is. The police are essentially a military organization. They’ll do as they’re told.”

“They may be military in appearance,” I pressed him, “but they exist because civilians created them. Selectmen and voters all over this state won’t be too thrilled with having their homegrown, handpicked departments replaced with some top-heavy, faceless state agency, no matter how rational the explanation. Bellows Falls measures a single square mile, and is maybe eight minutes away from one of the larger state police barracks, but year after year they fund their own PD, despite all the statistics that tell them it’s nuts. Local control’s still a big thing here. Why do you think it took Vermont so long just to get 911 adopted? And that looked like a total no-brainer.”

He gave me the indulgent look of a long-suffering parent. “This is not some flash-in-the-pan, election-year notion, Lieutenant, as you know full well. As early as 1990, the Windham Foundation hosted a conference on this topic, and the general consensus from everyone attending-from sheriffs to local cops to the state police-was that this course of action made the most sense in addressing a raft of problems we’ve been saddled with for decades. In fact, that same year, the various agencies in Chittenden County pooled together to form CUSI, with a focus on sexual assault cases, and it’s proven very effective, as has its St. Albans-based counterpart, the Northwest Unit for Special Investigations. Things move slowly, I know, and sometimes it takes a tragedy like what happened up north to give them the push they need, but that doesn’t mean they can’t eventually happen. You just need enough people to believe in the cause.”

I resisted pointing out that while the Windham Foundation meeting he’d mentioned had concluded that policing could be improved using a regional approach-and not a single police agency-everyone in attendance had also agreed that none of them would live long enough to see any of their recommendations become reality.

“In any case, I’d like to make you a proposal,” he continued. “When all this comes to pass, I’d like you to consider a leadership position in this new organization.”

I deflected the offer, which I didn’t see as his to make in any case. “Have you come up with a name for it yet?”

He smiled broadly. “Tentatively, yes. The Agency for Criminal Justice has been kicked around, but that sounds a little flat to me. I prefer the Vermont Bureau of Investigation-VBI for short.”

“Very flashy. Sounds like an army dressed in business suits and barn boots.”

He lifted his snifter in a toast. “You can laugh now, but I’ll see this thing through. To your health.”

I returned the gesture without comment.

Gail was reading in bed when I got home. “Where’ve you been? I called the office an hour ago.”

“Having an out-of-body experience with Jim Reynolds. Strangest conversation I’ve had in a long time.”

She smiled sadly. “That’s saying something, given the ones we’ve been having.”

I sat beside her and squeezed her hand. “Those haven’t been strange. They’ve been painful.”

She took my hand and kissed it. “So what did you talk about?”

“I went there to give him the third degree. I ended up watching him drink cognac, treat his wife like a servant, and make references to Occam’s Razor.”

“Who?”

“Exactly what he was hoping I’d say, except I fooled him. William of Occam was a fourteenth-century theologian who came up with a theory that said, more or less, that too much bullshit makes for cluttered thinking. And encourages the employment of too many managers, who in turn do their best to keep things cluttered.”

She looked at me questioningly.

“Okay, so maybe he used different words and was mostly talking about a bloated clergy. In any case, it’s been handed down to us as that favorite of all management tools: Keep It Simple, Stupid-KISS. That’s what Reynolds claims his bill is-a massive pruning of redundancies.”

“I suppose he’s probably right.”

I got up and started getting ready for bed. “From what I heard this morning, Derby’s apparently trying to get you familiarized with William of Occam.”

Her eyes narrowed a fraction. “What did he say?”

“That you’re giving him hives fretting about Owen Tharp’s motivation.”

“What did you say?”

“Not a word. To borrow a phrase from the legal profession, it was a spontaneous utterance. I was telling him how the two homicide cases were bumping into each other in terms of crossover witnesses. He said McNeil was going to love exploiting that, and then he nailed me with how my girlfriend was giving him enough trouble as it was.”

She didn’t bite at the girlfriend crack, admitting instead, “I am.”

I paused in mid motion and looked at her. “A lot of trouble?”

She tilted her head slightly. “Could be. You and I have been over this ground before. I don’t have any doubts Owen Tharp killed that woman, but I’ve got some major ones that it was as simple as everyone’s hoping. McNeil and I have started trading pretrial information, and there’s not much I can see in Owen’s past that would make him go to Croteau’s house and kill her without cause.”

“He had cause. He thought she’d killed his girlfriend.”

“Exactly,” she said, sitting forward for emphasis. “And we now know from the girlfriend’s autopsy he was lied to. In his confession, he didn’t say something vague like, ‘The dope was poison.’ His exact words were, ‘Brenda put poison in her dope.’ That’s a specific accusation. The autopsy doesn’t bear it out, Owen wasn’t a witness to Lisa’s death, and nothing indicated at the time that she’d been murdered. So someone must’ve fed him that line, thereby directing him like a guided missile toward Brenda Croteau.”

I scratched my head. “I don’t know, Gail. There’s no evidence of that.”

“Are you kidding? Look at the kid. He’s everybody’s lapdog. They treat him like shit and he comes back for more-again and again and again. He’s the perfect weapon. He craves affection, isn’t too bright, and is prone to violent outbursts, and according to the lab results, he was higher than a kite on the night of the killing.”

“So why isn’t McNeil knocking your door down with a devil-made-him-do-it defense? He could plead diminished capacity, send Owen to a rubber room for a few years of gentle treatment, and have him back on the streets before he turns thirty.”

She thought a moment before answering. “Two reasons: one, he just might-it is early yet-and two, his client may be protecting the person who pushed his buttons. If Owen thinks that shooting his mouth off will land a father figure in jail, he’s going to do the noble thing. He’s a romantic, after all-he already thinks he avenged his sainted girlfriend, and she, for all we know, was a hooker who gave him a single roll in the hay, if that.”

By now I was sitting on a chair across the room, one sock in my hand, listening intently, my mind in a turmoil.

“I’m not arguing the point,” I said. “It could’ve happened that way. But what can you do about it? It’s not like you have the wrong man in jail. And Derby will have your hide if you open a can of worms this late in the game, especially when all you’re working from is a theory.”

She stared at the small hill her knees made under the blankets, reflecting on what I’d just said. Then she raised her eyes and gave me a half smile, filled with all the sadness and disappointment we’d been trying to deal with these last few days.

“I guess I need help.”