Occam's razor

25

The good news was that both the medical examiner and the crime lab eventually confirmed that everything we’d sent them connected Walter Freund to the death of Brenda Croteau. His DNA matched the tissue under her fingernail, minute traces of oilstone grit were identical to those found on his Bowie knife-and made matching the various wounds to the two knives that much easier-and the soiled clothes had been stained by Brenda’s blood.

The bad news was that Walter Freund had disappeared, influenced, no doubt, by my all-too-clever conversation with him.

A general be-on-the-lookout order was issued throughout the country and entered into the NCIC computer, and Freund’s background was analyzed for leads on his whereabouts. But no one I knew was holding their breath. We knew Walter would resurface in the long run-people with his habits always did-but we also knew our efforts would have little to do with it. Sooner or later, he’d rob a store, beat up a girlfriend, buy some dope from an undercover cop, or even run a red light, and he’d be back among us.

None of which made me feel any better.

At least as far as Gail was concerned, things improved immeasurably. She and Reggie McNeil worked out a proposal lessening his client’s charges at Walter’s expense-pending Owen’s full explanation of his role in Brenda’s death-and Derby was forced to admit that, Walter’s disappearance notwithstanding, this deal made him look a whole lot better than if he had crucified Owen and never given Freund a second’s thought.

Which was just as well, since when Stanley Katz broke the news of the deal prematurely, Jack Derby was able to claim almost full credit. And at this point, with her future discreetly in her pocket and the two of us back on track, Gail couldn’t have cared less.

Unfortunately, the hinge pin for success was Owen Tharp, and nobody knew if he’d play along.

Gail and I drove up to the Woodstock correctional facility in early April to meet with Reggie and Owen and see if he’d help decide his own fate. Reggie had been spending weeks with him, revealing the evidence against Walter and telling him how Walter had manipulated him into sacrificing himself-trying, with time and effort, to wean Owen from his loyalty to the man who had killed his girlfriend and ruined his life. But according to Reggie, it had not been easy going.

The room we met in was bland, bare, windowless, and small, adorned with a single table and a few chairs, two of which were already occupied by Reggie and Owen when we were ushered in.

It was odd meeting Owen after all this time. The first and last time I’d seen him was in the middle of a snowstorm when we’d all been dying of hypothermia. Despite his importance in my life since then, he’d almost become an abstraction. Watching him sitting there now-pale, thin, and nervous-helped reduce all our machinations to a pathetically human level.

Introductions were made all around. No one bothered shaking hands. Owen didn’t look like he had the energy for it anyhow.

Gail placed a tape recorder on the table and depressed the record button, raising her eyebrows at Reggie. He shrugged his agreement without comment.

Gail recited the time, date, location, and the names of everyone around the table and then asked Reggie if his client had been apprised of the reasons for this meeting. Reggie stated that was the case.

It was then my turn to address Owen.

“I’m sorry for all the mumbo-jumbo,” I began, “but with any luck, this’ll be the beginning of the end of this mess for you. They treating you all right in here?”

“It’s okay.”

“Good. Would you like a smoke or something to drink while we’re doing this?”

He shook his head.

“Okay. We want to hear about your relationship with Walter Freund and how it led to what happened in Brenda Croteau’s home the night she died. Why don’t you start with Walter?”

Owen’s eyes hadn’t moved from the tabletop from the time we’d entered the room, and they stayed there now. “We were friends. I thought he wanted to help me out.”

“How?”

“Just doin’ stuff. I have a hard time that way. I don’t see everything real clear in my head. He explained things.”

“Like what happened to Lisa?”

“Yeah-later.”

“Long after she died, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“How long? Months? Years?”

“Years. He told me he didn’t want me to know at first, ’cause it wouldn’t bring her back, and he didn’t want to make me more unhappy. But he knew she’d been murdered all along, and he told me when he found out who’d done it.”

“Is this what he told you, or what you still believe now?” I asked carefully.

He shook his head. “I know what happened now. He lied to me. He killed Lisa to foul me up.”

“Is this something you know for a fact? Or is it something that’s been told to you, and you think might be the truth?”

I noticed McNeil getting restless, but Owen beat him to it, looking up at me, open and guileless. “I know what you’re thinking. I’m not too smart and I let people push me around. I know they all think I’m stupid, but I have a brain, and I see stuff, and I can figure things out. I see what Walter did. I believed him then, but I know he lied to me. He used me to kill Brenda like he’d use a car to run her down.”

I was impressed. Reggie had done his work well. “Let’s focus on the period leading up to that. Walter told you he’d discovered that Brenda had poisoned Lisa’s dope. Did he say why she’d done it?”

“Just that she was a crazy bitch-that Lisa had stolen her boyfriend from her once, and she’d wanted revenge. Walter made her sound like a real nutcase-a hooker, a doper, a blackmailer, a thief. He used all sorts of words to put her down. Made her sound like scum.”

“How did the subject of killing her come up?”

“We were getting pretty blown. That part’s a little fuzzy. I remember being in Walter’s office-that’s what he called it-and him asking me if the world wouldn’t be better off without people like her. Next thing I know, we were talking about how to do it. He talked a bunch about Lisa and how sweet she was. It really got me mad. I mean, I know it was wrong, but I really did hate Brenda then. Walter told me it wasn’t a one-shot thing with her, either-that she’d done this junk to other people. Like a bloodsucker. He kept asking me, what do you do to a bloodsucker?”

He paused. He was back to addressing the table. “I don’t really remember going there-just standing in her kitchen door, hearing her yell at me. I accused her of killing Lisa, and she started calling me names-puttin’ me down like everybody does. But I kept hearing Walter in my head, too, telling me to shut her up. He told me she’d be like that, and he was right… It wasn’t till she hit me that I grabbed the knife. It was just lying there. And then she went down. And I ran.”

“Hit you how? With her fist?”

“No. She slapped me.”

“Let’s back up a little,” I suggested. “If you went there to kill her, didn’t you have your own knife?”

“I couldn’t find it. Walter gave it to me, but I didn’t have it in the house. I knew then I’d left it in the truck. But when I looked later, it wasn’t there, either.”

“And you have no recollection of how you got to Brenda’s house? You don’t remember driving there?”

He shook his head.

“Is it possible you were driven there by Walter?”

He looked up a second time, briefly. “I don’t know. There are whole parts of that night that’re just gone-like they didn’t exist. I dream about it sometimes, but that doesn’t help either, ’cause the faces get mixed up. I have one where I’m hitting Lisa with the knife.”

“In those memories, Owen-the real ones, not the dreams-how do you see Brenda? What’s she doing to protect herself?”

“I dunno. Holding her hands up.” He shuddered suddenly. “I don’t like thinking about it.”

“You’ve got to, though. You know you did this.”

Reggie McNeil stirred slightly in protest and I nodded to him. “Owen, how much blood do you remember? Was it spurting all over, or just running out like it would from a cut?”

“There was a lot of it. I don’t remember spurting.”

“And when you left, was she still alive?”

“She was still yelling at me, down on the floor.”

“Yelling?”

He equivocated. “Maybe not yelling. She was crying. She sounded real scared. The anger was all gone.” His voice cracked at that last comment, and he lapsed into silence.

“Think back to the last memory you have of her, on the floor. Is she surrounded by blood? What does it look like on the floor?”

He gave me a baffled stare. “I don’t know. Splotches-like when you cut something real bad.”

“Not a big pool?”

“No-just a whole bunch of spots.”

“Okay. Let’s back up again. You said Walter called Brenda a blackmailer, along with everything else. Did he say who she was blackmailing, or why?”

He shook his head.

“And you also mentioned an office. Where was that?”

“Where the Dirty Dollar is, on the top floor. Nobody knows about it. It’s not really an office. It’s full of old junk. Walter just called it that. We’d meet there and talk. Sometimes, when I was in a jam, he’d let me sleep there, too. That was kind of fun.”

“Was it just you and Walter who knew about this place?”

“And Billy. I saw him there once, when I was leaving. He was coming upstairs.”

“Billy?”

“Yeah. Billy Conyer.”

I stood in the doorway of Walter’s office-an abandoned, dusty corner room, filled with old broken furniture, dilapidated shelf units, and piled boxes of unused municipal forms apparently stashed there by some neophyte clerk of the 1950s who’d overordered by tenfold and chosen to bury his sins.

In a corner, under two grimy windows, was a cluster of blankets, ratty pillows, two seats torn from a car, and a scattering of pornographic books, magazines, and some crumpled newspapers. The floor was littered with cigarette butts, used Kleenexes, stray pieces of clothing, and clumps of ancient accumulated dirt.

Willy, J.P., and two uniformed officers were just finishing their examination of it all.

“Find anything?” I asked.

“Nice timing,” Willy cracked. “You show up to offer a hand?”

J.P. snapped off his latex gloves and neatly put them in his pocket. “Pretty much what you see,” he said with an uncharacteristic smile. “There’re some more clothes and dirty books in a carton, and we found a cashbox-open and empty. Walter might’ve cleaned it out before he disappeared.”

I glanced out the windows at Brattleboro’s flat-topped skyline, rendered by the dust to look like an ancient photograph of some gritty industrial town. “Willy,” I asked, “did you ever hear back from the lab on Billy’s personal effects?”

“Like fingerprints on the banknotes? Yup, but none matching anything on file. And the rest didn’t come to anything, either-rent receipts and bills, and a letter demanding back payment for some hundred-dollar wreck on wheels.”

It sounded like a wash, but I sensed from the good mood of both men that they were holding something back. I entered the room and walked over to the carton J.P. had mentioned that contained more clothing and books. I kicked back one of the flaps with my foot and peered inside. “So what’s the punch line here, guys?”

“Right here,” J.P. said, obviously pleased with himself.

I turned to see him dangling an evidence bag by one corner, swinging it back and forth. “And that is?”

He smiled. “A bloodstained T-shirt. If there’s a God, it’ll match someone we know.”

“Just heard from the lab. The blood on the T-shirt belongs to Phil Resnick, and the shirt’s the right size and has trace evidence linking it to Walter Freund. You’ll love this-the DNA you collected from him matches the sweat stains from the armpits.”

I was sitting in a borrowed chair in the squad room, opposite the two cubicles occupied by Ron and Willy. As I spoke, I fiddled with a rubber band I’d found on the floor.

“I suppose Walter could’ve used Billy like he did Owen, brain-jamming him to participate in Resnick’s killing, but I kind of doubt it. Billy struck me as more of a fellow traveler. Owen was a plaything-a mouse to Walter’s cat.”

“You don’t use a mouse as a hit man,” Willy said doubtfully.

“You might if you’re feeling too exposed,” I countered. “A three-time loser on parole-and the T-shirt tells us Walter already had one body on his slate. In theory, Owen could’ve been the perfect remote-control killer-he’d do the job, get caught, and clam up out of loyalty to the only friend he has left in the world. Walter would be in the clear because nobody would think to connect him to it. It must have really bummed him out when he realized Owen had left the Bowie knife in the truck.”

“No shit,” Willy agreed. “So Walter went in after Owen peeled out of there-throwing the kitchen knife into the bushes-finished Brenda off, ransacked the place looking for whatever it was she was blackmailing him with, tore out the journal pages with his name, and split, leaving the lights on behind him and the kid to freeze to death.”

“With one additional detail,” I said. “She would’ve survived otherwise. The ME’s pretty confident the kitchen knife only inflicted the lesser wounds. That’s why Owen only remembers splotches of blood, instead of the huge pool we found. Walter’s problem was he had to kill her, but he couldn’t get close enough without getting scratched.”

“Which probably pissed him off enough that he almost decapitated her,” Willy finished.

“It explains the savagery Owen lacks,” I agreed.

“But it still leaves us not knowing what she was holding over him,” Ron said, ever the pragmatist.

“Yeah,” I mused. “The way he went through the place, it must’ve had a physical form, like a recording or a picture-maybe a document. It had to be more than just the journal, since that was on the desk out in the open. But we could be putting too much faith in that. She might’ve just known something about him.”

“Then why tear the house apart?”

“To make sure there wasn’t anything more, like another journal or some pictures. He couldn’t afford the smallest link between them, especially now that his plan with Owen had gone wrong.”

“There was the empty cashbox at his hideout,” Willy pointed out. “Maybe he hid whatever he stole from her in that.”

“Or maybe it just had cash.” I fooled with the rubber band some more in silence and then changed tack: “At least we have an idea what she was blackmailing him about, even if we don’t know how.”

“Resnick’s murder,” Ron suggested.

“Right. If Brenda knew about that, it not only explains why he killed her, but why he tried to use a surrogate to do it.”

“How did she know he killed Resnick?” Willy asked.

I steepled my fingers in front of my mouth, the rubber band looped loosely around them. “Okay, let’s go back-Billy, Walter, and somebody else knock Resnick senseless. Where we don’t know, but presumably wherever he went after leaving the truck-or somewhere he could take care of those burns. That’s the first place she might’ve seen them.”

“Hold it,” Willy said, as if glimpsing a vague light far off. “Why go so far back? How many people did we talk to who saw the three of them at the tracks? Half a dozen. Why couldn’t Brenda have been there, too? She knew Walter. She might’ve recognized him by the way he walked or something.”

“She didn’t show up in the canvass,” Ron countered.

Willy smiled broadly, suddenly looking very self-satisfied. “She was a hooker, right?”

Ron’s mouth opened, but I answered for him. “And the four guys at the poker party were celebrating a birthday.”

The sense of epiphany we all shared at that split second totally eclipsed from my mind that one of those four had been Sammie’s Andy Padgett.

James Lyon didn’t look comfortable, which suited me fine. He sat in the small interrogation room we had tucked into a corner of our bailiwick, facing the one-way mirror with his hands in his lap. He had nothing to read, no one to talk to, and no window to look out of. He’d been sitting in there for forty-five minutes, during which I’d periodically come out of my office, stepped into the closet-sized viewing room, and checked on his psychological progress.

I liked what I was seeing. Of the four poker players who had been interviewed following Phil Resnick’s death, Lyon was the one Willy Kunkle had described as nervous. If we were right about what had gone on that night-in addition to the card game-I could now understand why. Andy Padgett was unattached-or had been up till then-Frankie Harris had been one of Brenda’s regular customers, Don Carter had the longest rap sheet and was therefore presumably a hard-ass, but Lyon-married, with kids, and as clean as a whistle-was another matter entirely. If anything untoward had occurred at that party, Lyon was going to tell us about it.

Eventually, I opened the door and stepped inside to face him.

I parked myself on the edge of the table, my eyes glued to an open file. “James Lyon,” I pretended to read, my voice grim, “married, three kids, age thirty, you’ve worked at Span-Lastic for the past five years. No record, no parking tickets-says here you play on the softball team, too. All-American boy.” I finally looked at him. “How long you been married, Jim?”

He swallowed hard. “I, ah… guess eight years.”

“You guess?” I laughed harshly. “I thought you were supposed to know that stuff-get into trouble otherwise. Is it eight years or not?”

“Yes,” he said hesitantly and then added, “Why have I been brought here?”

I didn’t answer him. “Eight years, three kids. Place must be like a nuthouse when you get home. Your wife easy to get along with?” I glanced back at the file, “Sherry?”

“Sure, and the kids aren’t bad.”

I raised my eyebrows. “A glowing report. In my line of work, that usually means a cover-up. You hiding something?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but I cut him off. “Tell me how long you’ve known Frankie and the boys. You play poker together often?”

He flushed red and stammered, “N-no. That was the first time I’d done it.”

“Done it? Done what?”

“Play… cards.”

I smiled. “Wasn’t sure what you meant there for a second. Four guys out at a bachelor birthday party. One thing leads to another.”

“We just played poker.”

I looked at him for a long, measured ten seconds and then went back to the file. “Right. So how come you got invited?”

“I know Don Carter from softball. They’d asked somebody else for the card game, but he couldn’t make it. I said I’d go to even things out. Sherry said it would be okay.”

I nodded. “Well, I guess if we had to, we could ask her about that. She know you’re down here?”

“No. She thinks I’m still at work.” He feigned looking at his watch, although his shirtsleeve covered half its face. “I ought to be getting back, too. Did you want to ask me something about that man getting killed?”

I placed the file on the table, crossed my arms, and stared at him. “I want to know about the poker party.”

He made a pointed effort to maintain eye contact, but I could see his Adam’s apple working hard. “What about it?” he asked, his voice almost breaking.

“I want to know what happened besides card playing.”

“We drank a little. It was a birthday.”

“Any gifts?”

He hesitated. “There was a bottle-”

“Who from?”

His fingertips nervously brushed his chin. “I think it was Andy.”

“What did Frankie bring?”

Sweat began to appear high on his forehead. “Frankie? I’m not sure-”

I interrupted again, “I’m sorry. I should’ve asked, who did Frankie bring?”

He just watched me.

I leaned over so my face was inches from his. “Jim, either talk to me now or talk to Sherry tonight. Does the name Brenda Croteau ring a bell, or was your hand too good to notice her?”

Interrogations are a little like dancing with a blind date-lots of preliminary subtle body language establishing boundaries and intentions. Jim Lyon made it easy-he merely doubled over sobbing.

I watched his trembling curved back for a moment before announcing quietly but clearly, “Okay, time to come clean. I like what you tell me, this whole conversation stops here. Your choice.”

He wiped his eyes with his fingers and took a couple of deep, shuddering breaths. “I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you before. We were worried we’d get into trouble-that I’d get into trouble. I had the most to lose, being married and everything. They did it for me.”

“Lied, you mean?”

“Yeah. We couldn’t believe it-all you people suddenly there asking questions. It was like a nightmare. And I’d only said I’d go at the last minute. It was unbelievable.”

I kept my voice at a monotone to try to calm him down. “Was it Frankie who brought her to the party?”

“Yes. You were right. She was Don’s gift. Frankie even had her wear a red bow around her neck. I didn’t know anything about it till they walked in. I wanted to get the hell out of there as soon as I saw her, but then I thought, how would I explain it to Sherry? I was stuck.”

“Did you also figure, what the hell? And sample some of the goods?”

He looked genuinely horrified and began to fidget in his chair. “Oh, my God, no. That’s what I was worried about. I’m totally screwed now, if word gets out. There’s no fucking way anyone’s going to believe me.”

I placed a hand on his sweat-dampened shoulder. “Relax. You’re doing fine so far. Don’t fall apart on me. Tell me what happened, and in what sequence.”

He worked to control himself. “Frankie got there late, I guess on purpose, to make a big entrance, and she was like I said, wearing that bow. There was a lot of laughing and drinking and talk, and after a while, Don and her went into the bedroom down the hall.”

“And the rest of you did what?”

“We played cards and talked and drank… watched TV. Finally Don came back-”

“About when?”

“I’m not sure. After midnight, I think. I was so nervous, I sort of overdid it with the booze.”

“Okay, so Don came back.”

“Right, and then Frankie went to the bedroom to… you know.”

“How long did that last?”

“I fell asleep around then. They woke me up to play cards-I don’t know what time. The girl was gone. And the next thing that happened was you people came in asking questions about the guy who got killed by the train.”

“And you saw nothing of that?”

His eyes grew wide. “I didn’t lie there. And I swear I’m not lying now. That’s everything I know.”

“How about cooking up your cover story?”

He flushed again. “I’m sorry. That’s right. Frankie did see something through the window. Not the murder-just something he said was weird. And later, when the cops-I mean the police-were going door-to-door, we heard them coming. That’s when Frankie figured what he’d seen must’ve been pretty bad. So we came up with the all-night poker story. We didn’t know anything-Frankie told you the truth there. We didn’t see fessing up to having had a hooker would make any difference. It would just cause trouble.”

“You must’ve read about her in the paper when she was killed,” I said, not bothering to hide my contempt.

“We were scared shitless. We talked on the phone about it-about going to the police and telling them what we knew. But what did we know? I caught hell from Sherry as it was when I got home. This could’ve ended my marriage.” He paused and drew a long face. “Might still end it.”

I rose to my feet, finally tiring of his self-involvement. “Not unless you tell her, Jim. I’m cutting you loose. I will tell you one thing, though-it’s for her sake and the kids that I won’t blow the whistle. Your covering your own sorry butt cuts so close to interfering with a police investigation it barely shows daylight, and if I ever hear of you stepping out of line again-in any way, shape, or form-I’m going to make it my business that everyone finds out about this little conversation. Clear?”

He stood shakily, his shoulders stooped, and nodded miserably, which only made me want to kick him in the ass. “Yes, sir.”

“Get the hell out of here.”

He preceded me out of the door and disappeared. I stayed behind to slide his chair back under the table and turn off the light, and when I pulled the door shut behind me, I saw Sammie standing in the darkened viewing room, leaning against the wall, her face as still as stone.

“You been there long?”

“Long enough.”

I scratched the back of my neck. “What’re you going to do?”

“What do you think?”

I saw her point. Maintaining a love affair with a man who had kept vital evidence from the police, not to mention flat-out lied to her, would have been a little much to expect. I couldn’t have done it in her place.

“You want the rest of the day off?”

“I don’t know.”

I stepped into the small room. “Get it over with now, Sam. Go see him, clear the air, and then come over to my place later. We’ll get a pizza or something, have a few beers, and talk about what shits men can be. Gail’ll pitch in-I promise.”

She tried to smile. “Thanks, Joe. I’ll see how it goes.”

I watched her walk into the squad room, grab her coat, and leave, moving like an exhausted, shell-shocked soldier. She was possibly the best cop I’d ever worked with-committed, passionate, driven to outperform everyone around her. It almost broke my heart to see her served this way-the one time she’d taken a chance on a small bit of happiness.