Occam's razor

26

Gail, of course, had been right. Mark Mullen, Vermont’s speaker of the House, following his supportive and glowing speech about law and order and the Reynolds Bill, immediately set about taking the latter apart, piece by piece.

He did this in time-honored fashion, spreading the responsibility far and wide among his colleagues, vowing he was improving the Senate’s work by giving it the thorough and careful review it deserved.

At least his method was original. He pushed a resolution through the House creating a special committee-traditionally an advisory group-with full authorization to act in place of all the standing committees that would normally consider such a bill. Thus, instead of trying to manipulate several dozen people sitting on Appropriations, Judiciary, Government Ops, and the rest, Mullen simply handpicked a few representatives from each-and from both parties-and appointed them to the study committee. Their job was to analyze the bill, listen to testimony supporting and decrying it, and eventually report to the House membership for a full vote.

On the surface, it was both practical and efficient. It was also a good way for Mullen to maintain near-total control.

Once again, I was asked to Montpelier to act as an expert witness, which I only hoped I could do with total impartiality. As the months had slipped by, the law enforcement “super agency” bill had been sharply debated across the state, and my earlier desire to keep an open mind had begun to erode.

In this I was hardly alone. If nothing else, Reynolds had given birth to a genuine hot potato. In radio commentaries, newspaper editorials, and squad rooms across Vermont, this topic had been bandied around with passion and prejudice, and with little general agreement. Most interesting, however, no one had been seen rallying around the status quo. They couldn’t agree on what exactly was broken, but everyone agreed it needed fixing.

It was a custom-made void for Mark Mullen and his ambitions, whatever end strategy he might have been considering.

Mullen had made of himself a living local legend-although one whose grasp on power was at a crucial juncture. Born outside Barre forty-five years ago, the youngest of two sons of a quarryman father, he’d been elected to the House while still in his early twenties and had stayed there ever since, eventually sitting on most of the committees, and finally-though a member of the minority party that year-being elected speaker, a quirky phenomenon almost unique to Vermont, and one the Republicans had since come to rue.

At the time, however, his selection had been no surprise. An instinctive consensus builder and a genuine “people person,” Mullen paid minimal attention to party lines, orchestrating the Legislature less from the podium and more by intimate personal contact, although naturally most often to the advantage of the Democrats.

His early reign had not been without controversy-with predictable accusations of favoritism and grandstanding-but lately it had smoothed out to the point of becoming bland. His influence had begun to pall. Mullen’s creation of this special committee, instead of letting the Reynolds Bill loose among the standing committees, had struck many as the action of a man both doubtful of his old clout and transparently eager to make a big splash.

My drive to Montpelier this time was very different from before, when the snow and ice had turned the countryside into a crystal palace. Now a strong feeling of change was pervasive in the countryside-the unlocking season, as some called it, was nigh-when winter’s frozen grip began yielding to something just shy of spring.

This wouldn’t have been the case during the legislative sessions of yore. Back then, the State House had called it quits by early April, so the mostly farmer/lawmakers could return to their fields and maybe get in a little late sugaring if they were lucky or lived up north. But times had changed and The Bill, as some sorrowful legislators were calling it, had delayed things even more, so that nobody was placing bets on when they’d be going home.

But while the mood in the State House was souring, its crush of humanity had steadfastly remained the same. The hallways were as crammed with people-an inordinately large number of them in uniform-and the sense of tension was as palpable as before.

I was supposed to meet with the study committee at one but found that the schedule had gone routinely off track. So I located an old and decorous chair, tucked under the wing of one of the building’s two sweeping staircases, and prepared for a long wait.

A tall, thin, angular man wearing a suit and a tangled mop of dark hair slid into the chair next to mine-Commissioner of Public Safety David Stanton.

“Hi, Joe,” he said, leaning over to shake hands. “Long time.”

“Yup.” I gestured at the stream of people passing before us. “You pretty pleased with what you set in motion?”

Still smiling, he watched me closely. “I set in motion?”

“Reynolds wouldn’t have started all this without the governor’s blessing, and Howie wouldn’t have given it without consulting you. That makes you the logical choice for the next Secretary of Criminal Justice.”

“He consulted me, sure,” Stanton agreed coyly, ignoring my conclusion. “But this is Reynolds’s baby. Not mine.”

“Oh-oh-that mean you’re looking to jump ship?”

He laughed. “You’re worse than the news guys. I have no idea where this is headed.”

“I’m not against it heading somewhere,” I said to reassure him. “And I never expected the Legislature not to tie it up in knots. But I was thinking as I drove up here that the debate’s been pretty interesting-opened up a few closets a lot of people might’ve liked kept shut.”

“Like the sheriffs?”

“Like everybody-all that local control baloney. I’ve always loved how those official press releases about interagency cooperation compared to the real thing. This has ripped off some of the camouflage.”

Stanton cut me a look. “Sounding pretty cynical, there, Joe.”

I shook my head. “I’m happy it’s getting shaken up-long overdue. I just hope things don’t end up exactly where they were.”

He stared at the floor, nodding silently in agreement.

I became aware of a shadow to my left and turned to find a young page awkwardly standing by my chair. “What’s up?”

“Are you Mr. Gunther?”

I admitted as much.

“Speaker Mullen would like to meet you in his office.”

Stanton laughed softly. “Watch your step there, Joe.”

I got up and patted his shoulder. “You, too. For what’s it worth, I think you’d be good in that job.”

I followed the page upstairs to the second floor, through the vast, empty House chamber with its brilliant red carpeting and enormous bronze chandelier festooned with statues of nude women, snakes, and eagles. We climbed the low stage at the front, circled the carved, pulpit-like speaker’s podium, and almost ducked under a large, low-hung portrait of George Washington into a narrow hallway connecting the old building to a new addition housing a modern cafeteria and Mark Mullen’s office.

There, barricaded behind a small reception area guarded by a secretary, I found the speaker stretched out across an old leather tilt-back chair, his feet planted on his antique desk, talking on the phone. He smiled as the page faded away, waved me to a chair, and quickly wrapped up his conversation.

He then rose, leaned over, shook hands, and said, “Joe Gunther. I’m sorry we’ve never met till now. Heard a lot about you. Appreciated what you said when the Senate called you in. You want some coffee?”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

“I’m also sorry we had to drag you up here again, but I told ’em I didn’t think we could do this thing justice if we didn’t get some of the brains in on it they’d had the first time around.”

“There going to be big changes?” I asked innocently.

He didn’t duck. “Count on it. You don’t throw out over two hundred years of tradition without pissing a few people off. Reynolds was living in a dream world if he thought otherwise. You two buddy-buddy?”

“Hardly.”

“Good, ’cause he’s in for a wake-up. The Senate has no idea what’s going on in this state. They see some dead babies, all the headlines, they run a poll, and next thing you know, they’re talking about a mandate from the people. It’s a joke. The people don’t know any more about the problem than they do. It is a problem-I know that just like you do-but to solve it you need expert advice, to find out what you can do and what you can’t. Simple as that-and hard as that, too. People don’t take kindly to politicians saying, ‘This is the way it’s going to be.’ You gotta give ’em a sense they’re part of the process.” He paused and then smiled. “But, shit. You know all that. What do you think we ought to do?”

I had to hand it to him. He was affable, gregarious, informal, and inviting-a very likeable mix-and very unlike his rival in the Senate. He also spoke with the practical assurance of a veteran and left his listeners thinking they were dealing with a man who would use the tools at hand to get the job done. The amount of Mullen’s blarney probably didn’t differ much from Reynolds’s, but it was a lot more pleasant to listen to.

“So you agree with Reynolds that a big change needs to happen?”

“You kidding? That’s the downside of two hundred years of tradition-it’s two hundred years old.” He laughed. “Sure it’s screwed up-everybody guarding his own little patch of dirt. Dumber than hell. But how do you change it?”

I realized it wasn’t a rhetorical question. “Maybe shoot for the middle ground? Somewhere between seventy agencies and one. And standardize communications and procedures so we all play out of the same book. I don’t really know, either,” I admitted uncomfortably, “but it’s pretty clear the more we share, the better off we are. Programs like CUSI, NUSI, and single dispatch centers like the one in Chittenden County could be used as models.”

He was nodding vigorously. “Right, right. That’s it. Use what we got as examples. That way, law enforcement’s leading its own instead of being pushed into something by a bunch of politicians.”

The same page who’d escorted me here reappeared in the doorway.

“They want him downstairs?” Mullen asked, jumping to his feet.

“Yes, sir.”

He shook my hand again as I headed out. “Give ’em all you got, Joe. No time to hold back. Good talking to you.”

With that staccato pep talk echoing in my ears, I followed my skinny guide back through the building, this time to the second floor of the north wing, where the House held its hearings.

It had been an odd encounter to no apparent purpose, although I was conscious of feeling that, like a bull going up for auction, I’d just been given the once-over by the money behind the bidders.

I returned to Brattleboro that evening, after two hours with the study committee. The experience had been appropriately more chaotic than during my encounter with the senators, since the contradictory special interests had finally broken cover to wield their influence. But one thing I did come away with was the conviction that Reynolds’s clean if simpleminded bill would reemerge as a shredded shadow of its previous self.

The car phone went off as I was nearing the interstate’s Putney exit, north of Brattleboro.

It was Ron. “Looks like that intel meeting you attended a few months ago paid off,” he said. “I just got a call from Budd Sheeney in Hinsdale. He’s been showing Resnick’s picture around since you handed it out, and he thinks he might’ve found something. He’s being a little coy-probably worried we’ll steal the credit unless he talks to you himself.”

I sighed at the mentality, memories of where I’d just left fresh in my mind. “Where is he?”

“I didn’t know where you were, so I didn’t set anything up.”

“Call him back. I’m fifteen minutes out. I’ll drop by the station, pick you up if you want, and we can go straight to him.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he answered. “I don’t need to come. I’ll get back to you with a location.”

I was almost in Brattleboro when the phone buzzed again. “Hinsdale High School parking lot,” Ron said. “He’ll be waiting for you.”

Hinsdale, New Hampshire, is right across the river from Brattleboro, so integrally linked to it that the relationship is essentially symbiotic-they have a greyhound racetrack that our citizens regularly patronize, while our Putney Road commercial strip-complete with a sales tax New Hampshire has so far avoided-still serves as their primary shopping place. The best example of this close tie can be found with the local Wal-Mart. When Vermont was making a stance as the nation’s only Wal-Mart free state, the company defiantly planted an outlet within view on the Hinsdale side of the Connecticut River. Over time, not only had such proximity not gutted Brattleboro’s downtown, but Wal-Mart had been forced to ask its rival’s board of selectmen to accept the residue of a slipshod, malfunctioning sewer system instead of trucking it daily to who-knew-where. Brattleboro had politely refused.

The actual village of Hinsdale lies several miles southeast of the bridge-a quiet, none-too-prosperous town, once dominated by the quasi-obligatory nineteenth-century mill and now looking for a substitute cash cow to help it survive. Home of several substantial trailer parks and mile upon mile of residential roads, Hinsdale had become a bedroom community for those looking for less expensive housing and New Hampshire’s lighter touch in the taxation department.

The high school was located just west of the village, at the back of a broad expanse of fields and parking lots. There, reflective under one of the bright sodium lights, was a marked cruiser, its muffler emitting a tenuous plume of vapor. I pulled up next to it, nose-to-tail, and rolled down my window to talk to Budd Sheeney, elbow-to-elbow.

“How’re you doing, Joe? You didn’t waste any time.”

Budd was a large man in his forties-big-bellied, broad-shouldered, sporting the straight bristle mustache so common to police officers. A Hinsdale boy from birth, he’d gone straight from the school surrounding us to the police department and had been there ever since. He knew everybody as though they were blood-related and was as comfortable in this community as a bullfrog in a pond.

“I was just coming into town when Ron called me,” I answered. “I hear you have something on Phil Resnick.”

“I got a tickle, yeah. Wasn’t sure how high that was on your list anymore.”

I didn’t know if I should believe that, but I didn’t see any harm in letting him play Santa Claus. “Pretty high, Budd. I’d appreciate any help you can give us.”

“Not a problem,” he answered casually. “It’s one of those guy-who-knows-a-guy things, though, and I haven’t checked it out. But according to my source, someone looking like Resnick was seen at Sandy Corcoran’s place around the time you’re interested in.”

“What makes you think it was Resnick?” I asked.

“You said he might’ve been burned. Supposedly, this one’s face and hands looked like one big blister.”

That stopped me. I remembered the ME saying that the chloracne reaction to the chemicals would have taken several days to develop-and that, at the time of exposure, Resnick probably wouldn’t have done much more than wipe the stuff off without giving it a thought. “You have a precise date on this sighting?”

Sheeney shook his head. “The reference I got was ‘a few days before’ you found that body, whatever that means. Supposedly the guy was seen looking out of one of Sandy’s windows.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “What’s the story with Sandy Corcoran?”

“Standard bad girl, but no headline-maker. She’s been clean for about eight months. Did a little time for drunk and disorderly back then, when she took a bottle to her boyfriend’s head-not that he noticed or cared. But it was in the racetrack parking lot, so we had to do something about it.”

I thought for a moment. “Okay. Could you round up a search warrant? I want to be able to move on her with full guns when the time comes. I’ll have Ron call you tomorrow to coordinate. That okay?”

Sheeney nodded gravely, now officially integrated. “You got it.”

Sandy Corcoran lived in a small, peeling house on Route 63 heading out of Hinsdale village. Neither in town nor in the suburbs, it hung like a tattered thread on the border, near a couple of others like it, just shy of where the road opened up to countryside and woods.

When I parked the car a hundred yards below it and killed my lights, it was almost seven o’clock the night following my talk with Sheeney. Willy and J.P. were in the car with me. Sammie had taken a few days off and hadn’t been seen or heard from since.

I saw Budd Sheeney’s bulk loom up ahead of us, his outline caught by the dim lights from the house behind him.

He crouched by my door as I rolled down the window. “She’s inside, alone. Got back from work about an hour ago. I have a man watching the rear.”

“Then let’s get going,” Willy said and swung out of the car.

We walked quietly up to the building’s front porch, littered with the remnants of a winter’s worth of cordwood, now reduced to a few logs and a dunelike pile of bark scraps. The air was still and surprisingly warm-a hopeful harbinger of long-awaited spring.

Sheeney knocked politely on the front door.

We heard footsteps against a backdrop of TV noise, and a shadow passed across the curtain next to us. “Who is it?” The voice was neither soft nor fearful. I remember the comment about Sandy laying a bottle across her boyfriend’s head.

“It’s Budd Sheeney, Sandy. Wondered if we could talk to you.”

The door swung open, splashing us with light. Before us stood a tall, muscular, statuesque black-haired woman, dressed in tight jeans and a tank top. Her feet were bare and her eyes hard. She had a tattoo of an eagle on her well-muscled shoulder. “Who’s we?”

Budd gestured in our direction. I answered, “Joe Gunther-Brattleboro Police. We’re investigating a homicide and thought maybe you could help us.”

“I haven’t killed anybody.”

“No one said you did, Sandy,” Budd said. “Can we come in?”

“It’s not that cold. We can talk here.”

I took the warrant Budd had handed me earlier and gave it to her. “We’d like it better inside.”

She took it from me but didn’t bother opening it. She stepped back. “You fucking guys.”

We took that as an invitation and filed past her into a cluttered living room, piled with clothes, several old pizza boxes, and an assortment of cast-aside magazines. The walls were decorated with Harley and rock star posters, a plastic cat clock, and an out-of-date calendar advertising a beach in Hawaii.

“I got nothing to say, you know?” she continued. “And I don’t know shit from any homicides.” She pointed at Sheeney and smirked. “Ask him. He watches me enough of the time. He could probably tell you more about what I done than I could.”

“How ’bout the night of January sixth?” I asked, ignoring that Sheeney had actually blushed a bit, “when the body of Phil Resnick was found on the railroad tracks in Brattleboro?”

The only reaction I registered was a slight hesitation in her answer. “I don’t know nothin’ about that.” She then followed with more bluster, pointing at J.P. and Willy, who were quietly poking around the room, heading off elsewhere into the house. “What the hell do you think you’re doin’?”

I walked over to the TV and switched it off. “Read the warrant, Ms. Corcoran. We’re here because a judge agrees that you’re up to your neck in trouble. Have a seat.” I motioned toward the couch.

“Eat shit,” she said.

“Your choice,” I continued. “We happen to know Phil Resnick was brought here shortly before he was murdered. When he was dumped on the tracks, he was already unconscious, probably because he’d been hit on the head.” I made a show of pausing a moment before adding, “Which is something you like to do, don’t you? Beaned your boyfriend not long before Resnick got his. State’s Attorney will like that pattern.”

“You’re so full of shit,” she said, but I thought her enthusiasm was beginning to flag.

“Not this time.” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. “You know what they’re looking for?”

“Whatever it is, they won’t find it.”

“Not a single drop of blood?” I asked. “Not a fingerprint? What about his clothes? He was dressed like a bum when we found him. You don’t strike me as the neatest person around. If you forgot to remove, or vacuum, or wipe off even the tiniest bit of evidence, we’ll find it. After that, your life will be hell. Remember, we’re across the state line here. This’ll involve cops, prosecutors, and judges from both New Hampshire and Vermont if you don’t play ball. You could spend a lot of time in jail.”

She seemed to freeze a moment, then her face bunched up and she came at me, flying across the room like an enraged panther. Caught off guard, I braced myself for the worst.

But Budd Sheeney knew his people. Just as I was raising my hands to defend myself, Sheeney’s massive bulk cut across my line of vision, enveloping Corcoran’s body and whisking it away like a gust of wind might a leaf. They both landed with a tremendous crash against a side table, a tangle of arms and legs, wrestling and rolling on the floor until Sheeney was able to pin her face down and pull her arms up behind her back. Willy and J.P. appeared at separate doors, guns drawn, just as Budd was slapping on the cuffs, comfortably sitting on her muscular backside.

I squatted by her head. Her nostrils flaring, she sent up little puffs of dust from the floor with her breathing. “You assholes.”

“Talk to us, Sandy. We got you on attempted assault. Won’t be long before there’s more, including murder. I can’t believe it’s worth it.”

She closed her eyes briefly. When she reopened them, her voice was calm and measured. “If he’s finished enjoying himself, get this ape off my butt and help me up.”

Sheeney did the honors, smiling broadly, and steered Sandy Corcoran over to the couch, checking its cushions first for weapons. She sat down with a wince, her hands pinched against her back. I settled opposite her on the coffee table. “Your choice.”

She stared at me angrily. “He was here, but I had nothin’ to do with killin’ him.”

“Who did?”

She hesitated. “Walter Freund.”

I felt a small release valve open up inside my brain, and I fought the urge to smile, helped by a sudden concern. “You know where he is now?”

She shook her head. “I haven’t seen him since that night. That was the deal. I didn’t want any more to do with his bullshit.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“Take the cuffs off.”

Sheeney laughed. “Not likely.”

She flared back up. “I’m cooperating, all right? My wrists’re killin’ me. I already said I know what happened.”

I glanced at Sheeney and nodded. He crossed over to her, reached behind her back, and undid the cuffs. She made herself more comfortable, rubbing her wrists. “Walter called me one night and said he needed to stash somebody for a while. We did each other favors now and then. The timing was okay, so I said fine. He shows up with this guy. His face is all red and puffed up and kind of slimy in places. His hands, too. It was disgusting. I told Walter to fuck off-that I wasn’t no hospital. I thought it might be catching-all this shit you hear about in the news.”

“Did it look like Walter was helping this man, or forcing him to be here?”

“He was helping him. The guy was hurtin’, and complaining about some son of a bitch who’d done it to him. Walter told me he’d been splashed with chemicals. They’d even raided a Salvation Army bin to replace his clothes. He looked like a bum.”

“The son of a bitch have a name?”

She smiled slightly. “That was it, far as I heard. What were those chemicals anyhow? I always wondered.”

I ignored her. “Was Resnick threatening to get even?”

“He was pissed, all right. But he was too sick to do much about it.”

“Was there any indication of where Resnick had been staying before Walter brought him to you?”

She looked at me curiously. “Before? I don’t know anything about that.”

“How did Walter get you to change your mind?”

She laughed. “He doubled the price. Plus he told me it wasn’t catching. The damage had already been done.”

“What happened then?”

“Nothing at first. He stayed here a couple of days, tried to take care of himself. I don’t know ’cause I was at work.”

“Did he use the phone?”

“That would’ve been a neat trick. I don’t have one.”

“What kind of shape was he in?” I pressed her. “Did you think he was going to die?”

Her eyes grew round. “Shit, no. He was burned, is all, like with scalding water or something. It hurt like a bitch. I did buy him some ointment I got at the store. He used a ton of that stuff, and either it helped or he just started getting used to the pain.” She shook her head. “He was fine otherwise.” She paused. “At least while I saw him. I mean, I know some of that crap’ll really do you damage-cancer and what all-but that would’ve been later, right?”

“What happened to change things? Why did they go from helping him to killing him?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I told Walter we were done afterward. They showed up the next night and popped him one with a hammer. Just like that. He went down like a dead cow. I mean, Jesus, one minute they’re talkin’, next minute they’re draggin’ his ass outta here like he was meat. I went ballistic.”

“You keep saying, ‘they.’ Who did Walter have with him?”

“Some little shit. Called him Billy. I didn’t know him.”

“That was it? There weren’t three of them?”

“Nope.” She began studying her nails.

I leaned forward slightly. “Don’t quit on me now, Sandy. Who was the other man Walter brought with him?”

She suddenly gave up, staring me in the eye. “I never saw him. He stayed in the car. I figured he was Walter’s boss, or at least someone who had something over him.”

“Why’s that?”

She looked contemptuous. “Well, for Christ’s sake. It ain’t rocket science. Walter’s already in deep shit-on parole and all. He didn’t need to be poppin’ people off. So he was pissed. When they were dragging the guy out of here, he kept bitchin’ about how he didn’t have a say in it-that he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. He wasn’t a happy camper.”

“Neither Walter nor Billy mentioned any names?”

“No. Billy was a moron, anyhow. Kept lookin’ at my tits like he didn’t know what they were. Probably didn’t.”

Sheeney laughed shortly. Sandy leered at him. “You do, don’t you, though, lardass? Too bad you’ll never get a piece of ’em.”

“Sandy,” I interrupted. “You were about to hold back a minute ago. Were you thinking you could still get something out of this-put the squeeze on this third man?”

She smiled ruefully. “Seemed worth a try.”

“How were you going to find him?”

She shrugged. “Shit, I don’t know. I figured find Walter, you find that guy, right? Worth a shot.”

I couldn’t argue the logic. “Right.”