Occam's razor

7

The REFORMER’S Alice Simms was going to hold me to my promise. She intercepted me as I tried to duck under the police line as far from the thinned-out crowd as I could get.

“Walk you to your car, Joe?”

“Sure. Still too early to say much, though.”

“Try me.”

I gave her little more than what she and a few hundred other eavesdroppers had already heard over the scanner. “Appears to be a double homicide, woman and infant, unknown manner and cause, unknown identities, unknown time, unknown suspect or suspects.”

“You find a weapon?”

“Not so far, but we’ve barely begun looking-don’t want to rush things,” I added, hoping the philosophy might be catching.

It wasn’t, of course. “Was it a gun, a knife? What?” She was walking and writing in a notepad at the same time. Her head ducked down, her hair covering her face, she was headed straight for a telephone pole.

I grabbed her elbow and guided her clear. “Watch your step.”

She looked up quickly. “Could it be a murder/suicide?”

“I can’t say that for sure.”

She stopped and dropped her hands to her sides. “Well, say something, for crying out loud. Whose house is it, at least?”

I shook my head. “You’re moving too fast.” I checked my watch. “You’ve got five hours till deadline, more if you push it. Let me do the basic homework so we don’t both look like idiots later, okay? I’ll call you, I promise.”

She grudgingly went along with it, although I knew she’d pursue other sources in the meantime. She snapped her pad closed and let me leave in peace.

Heading back to the office, however, I decided to test Willy’s theory about Dave Raymo, who was supposed to be laboring in front of a keyboard, writing his report. I reached for the radio under my dash and called him up.

He answered tersely, his tone of voice betraying his surprise at being found out so quickly.

“Meet me at the bottom of Main and Canal,” I told him. “The Food Co-op parking lot.”

Predictably, I got there first, although I didn’t doubt he was waiting around a nearby corner, convincing himself that such a taunt would successfully salvage some juvenile pride-it was the kind of head game he held too dear. I merely left the engine running, thankful for a good heater, and watched the early evening crowd slowly converge on the Co-op.

He arrived eventually, his left elbow incongruously resting on the driver’s side windowsill-a casual look except for the obvious fact that he must have been freezing half to death.

He rolled to a stop so that our windows were opposite one another, forcing me to expose myself to the cold as he’d chosen to.

“What’s up?” he asked, his voice flat, adding with feigned nonchalance, “I had something I had to do before headin’ back to the barn.”

“I don’t think you want to be feeding me an attitude right now.”

He pursed his lips and kept silent.

“Maybe you can use your screwing around to some benefit,” I told him. “Before the night’s over we’ll have interviewed the Rescue crew, our own dispatch, the backup team you called, and all the neighbors on that street. We’ll have a pretty good idea what really happened when you first showed up. So now’s your chance-you want to change your story before it’s too late and you’ve made it part of the record? You told me you called Rescue and backup, and then ‘we’ went in. Who did you mean by ‘we’?”

He knew there was only one way out. “I went in alone,” he confessed angrily. “I didn’t wait for the others. I thought the woman might need help in there. I didn’t want to waste time.”

“What about the Rescue crew? Why weren’t they warned it was a homicide-to stay at a distance?”

His voice climbed a note, just shy of a whine. “They showed up too fast. I was still checking the house out. I had to make sure it was safe.”

“So they just walked in, totally unaware?”

After a pause, he admitted, “Yeah-just as I was checking out the kid’s room. That’s why I missed him. It didn’t even look like a nursery-I thought it was all storage.”

I sympathized with him there, at least. “You know what might have happened if someone had been waiting inside-to you and the Rescue folks both?”

A flash of irritation crossed his face. “I know, I know. It won’t happen again.”

I resisted the urge to reach out and twist his ear like a child’s. “That’s between you and your supervisor. I want to know exactly what you saw when you entered that building.”

“What’re you after?” he asked suspiciously.

“What you’re going to be putting into your report, Dave. The truth. What you saw, smelled, heard-everything that happened.”

He scowled, which came easily to him. “I didn’t hear or smell anything. Everyone was dead. And I didn’t touch anything.”

“How ’bout the lighting? Did you or the Rescue people turn on any lights to see better?”

“No.”

“Not even the baby’s room? Why have a bright overhead light on in a room with a sleeping baby?”

All suspicion drained from his face and he shook his head. “No. That is weird. That room should’ve been dark. The whole place was lit up like a Christmas tree.”

I put my car into gear, confirmed in my guess that the killer-or killers-had searched the place from one end to the other. “Okay, Dave. I’m glad you didn’t get yourself killed-or anyone else.”

The surliness returned. “Thanks,” he said, and hit the gas, squealing out of the parking lot ahead of me in some parody of male dominance.

I found a message to call Bobby Miller when I returned to the office. He was on the same shift as Raymo and so presumably out in his cruiser somewhere. I told dispatch to let him know I was back.

The phone rang five minutes later.

“Lieutenant? Something came up this afternoon I thought you should know about. Right after I went on duty, I got a call from Winthrop Johnston. You know him? He said you were old friends.”

“We are. He’s a PI. Ex-state trooper.”

“Right-that’s what he told me. He wanted to know about the break-in at Jim Reynolds’s place.”

I stood without moving for several seconds, digesting this. Jim Reynolds was becoming a radar blip that wouldn’t fade. “What did you tell him?”

“Nothing. I said I’d have to clear it with you. He was real nice about it. Said he understood and that he’d wait for you to call him. He made it sound like it was just a boring piece of paper shuffling he was doing, but it struck me as a funny coincidence.”

“Me, too. He didn’t say what he was after?”

“Nope.”

I thanked him, hung up, and dialed Johnston’s number from a list I had taped to my desk-not of snitches, whose names I kept more securely tucked away, but of bankers, business leaders, artists, teachers, and one private investigator-all keen observers, all well traveled, and all willing to act as sounding boards if they thought the questions I had made sense.

Winthrop Johnston, universally known as Win, had been born in Hardwick, in northern Vermont, attended the University of Vermont, and had worked with the state police for thirteen years before deciding to go independent. He’d been a PI for over a decade, working out of Putney, just north of Brattleboro, and had established a reputation as a straight arrow, walking the tightrope between actual broken laws and legal improprieties with a sure-footedness often lacking in his colleagues.

He answered on the third ring.

“Win, It’s Joe Gunther. Bobby Miller tells me you have some questions about Jim Reynolds.”

“No,” he answered carefully. “Not Reynolds. Just about the break-in at his office.”

“Can I ask why you want to know?” The question wasn’t as futile as it always appears on television. On TV, everything a private cop does is mantled by client confidentiality. In reality, PIs know they have to work closely with police and also know that making an issue over trivialities is both irritating and undermining.

Johnston didn’t disappoint. “He hired me to find out who did it.”

“Is he missing anything?”

“Not that I know of. What was your take on it?”

I had nothing to lose by being honest with him in turn, since I had nothing to begin with, anyway. “Can’t figure it out. He denied anything was missing, and we couldn’t tell if anything might’ve been added.”

Johnston sounded mildly surprised, which he may or may not have been in fact. “Like what?”

“Cute, Win. Rumor has it the man wouldn’t mind being governor. Was anything added?”

Win chuckled, then said, “Okay, he is worried, but I don’t think it’s because anything happened. My guess is he hired me because he wants it to stop there. If I get lucky, I’m basically supposed to say, ‘We know who you are and we know what you did,’ and hope that ends it.”

I took him at his word, at least for the moment. “Then I wish I could help you. Since there was nothing gone and no suspect in sight, we’ve pretty much dropped it. Bobby did notice a car heading off down the side street, but all he saw were taillights. His guess was he scared off whoever had broken in, and I think he’s probably right.”

“Okay, Joe,” Win conceded after a moment. “I appreciate the help.”

I sat staring at the phone for a long time after he’d hung up, remembering Stan Katz’s call to me earlier, along with something Bobby Miller had told me which I hadn’t passed on to Win Johnston-that the filing cabinet which appeared to have been rifled contained old, dog-eared files.

I finally shook my head and returned to the matter at hand. Jim Reynolds would have to stand in line.

I didn’t lie to Alice Simms, but when I did finally call her, I figured she had about thirty minutes to write her story and still make the deadline. That didn’t allow for a long question/answer session-a detail she assumed I’d planned from the start.

“You don’t get public servant of the year for this,” she told me testily once she got on the phone.

“You want it early and sketchy or late and fleshed-out?”

“Knowing you guys, it’ll probably be late and sketchy. What’ve you got?”

I cleared my throat and read from the SA-sanctioned statement I’d scribbled down following our ten p.m. squad meeting. “This afternoon, at 5:46 the Bratt PD was called to investigate a missing person complaint at the home of Brenda Croteau, aged twenty-three, living at number 38-B White Birch Avenue. The complaint had been filed by Ms. Croteau’s mother, June Dutelle, also of Brattleboro. Upon seeing what appeared to be a prostrate woman through one of the residence’s windows, officers entered the building and discovered Ms. Croteau’s dead body and that of her infant son, Sean. It appears right now that Ms. Croteau was the victim of a knife attack, while her son died of exposure after the home’s wood stove burned out.”

I stopped, hearing Alice’s rapid typing in the background. “Going too fast?”

“Not hardly.”

“Okay. The victim’s mother stated that she’d been trying to locate her daughter for the last thirty-six hours, which lack of success stimulated her call to police. Brenda Croteau was married to James A. Croteau just over a year ago, although the couple has not lived together since before Sean’s birth.”

“How old was the kid?” Alice asked.

“Five months,” I answered and resumed my monotone. “Mr. Croteau is not a suspect at this time-”

“Why not?” she interrupted again.

“Mr. Croteau is not a suspect at this time,” I repeated, “but police are conducting a thorough investigation, and expectations are high that a solution will be reached in due course.”

“For Christ’s sake. We’re all going to die in ‘due course.’ What’s that supposed to mean?”

I continued reading. “Several leads are being developed based on evidence left at the scene and the manner of Ms. Croteau’s death. However, if anyone with knowledge of any of these individuals or of any events connected to or leading up to this crime would contact the police department, their cooperation would be greatly appreciated.”

“You write all that?” she asked, sounding incredulous. I was slightly offended. “To help you out, yes. You want to clean it up, feel free. And you can add that autopsy results will be forthcoming.”

“I will. Can I ask you some questions, or is that all I’m going to get?”

“You won’t get much more. What’re you after?”

She laughed. “Well, for starters, what the hell happened? Was it a rape, a robbery, or what? Did she know the guy? What was she involved in that got her killed? And what about the hubby? He got ruled out pretty quick.”

“Off the record, he was in Burlington, with an alibi.”

“An alibi? You said the baby died of hypothermia after the stove died out, which means a lot of time’s gone by between now and when she died. How could he have an alibi?”

“Again off the record, because he’s in jail.”

There was dead silence at the other end, followed by, “I guess that would do it. He could’ve hired someone.”

“Okay, Alice. That’s it. We’ll be in touch.”

I heard her say something, but didn’t catch it since the phone was already halfway back to its cradle.

Gail smiled at me from across my office-about five feet. She’d dropped by to see how I was doing.

“Alice unhappy with your press release?”

I sat back in my chair and locked my fingers behind my head. “I can’t blame her, but it’s a catch-22. They get pissed because we’re so closemouthed. We get pissed because they don’t show any discretion. I know it’s old-fashioned, but I keep thinking back to when people like Eisenhower could trust journalists to keep quiet about D-Day and the Manhattan Project.”

“You can thank Vietnam for ending that,” Gail said. “Was that really true, what you told her about wrapping things up fast because of evidence left at the scene?”

I shook my head. “No. I gilded the lily a bit there. J.P. found a bloody smudge that looked like it came from someone’s knee. He also dusted for fingerprints, but it looks like half the Russian army’s passed through that house. We didn’t find a weapon or a nosy next-door neighbor, and we didn’t get anything from the victim’s mother. And you heard what I said about the hubby.”

Gail frowned. “Sounds like you’re up a creek.”

“I doubt it,” I answered. “Brenda hung out with a rough crowd. We’ll get something from one of them. Generally all you have to do is ask enough questions, and sooner or later somebody spills the beans. These ain’t Ph.D.s, and there is no honor among thieves. What we’re guessing is that she was fixing dinner, let her assailant in, and they got into an argument in the kitchen. There was a cutting board near where she died but no knife. Tomorrow, when it’s light, we’ll comb the neighborhood. I’m hoping we’ll find it in the bushes somewhere, complete with prints. If past history’s any guide, I won’t have lied to Alice about wrapping this up soon.”

Gail gave me a long, considered look. “I’d hate to see you eat those words.”

I shrugged. “I might. Alice asked if hubby could’ve hired a hit man. It could get complicated. This is only if the pattern stays typical.”

Gail changed the subject. “You heard from Sammie?”

“Yeah. She’s back on board. Turned up all out of breath at the scene. Pissed me off, to be honest. If the call had been for a cat up a tree, she’d still be on the sick list. I was going to talk to her about it.”

“Don’t.”

“Why not?”

“She’s earned the privilege to have a private life. Everybody else has one, goes on vacations, takes recreational sick days-except you, maybe. She’s never done any of those. She’s just becoming normal-and hoping her male colleagues will allow her that right. I think you’d be a real jerk to call her on the carpet.”

She was right. Sammie had spoiled us rotten. But I wished Gail hadn’t put it in just those words. To feel like a jerk was a whole lot less painful than being called one out loud.

“I won’t.” I held up my right hand. “Promise.”

Gail stretched and rubbed her eyes. She’d come here from her office, and I knew she was planning at least a couple more hours of study time at home. “You going to pull an all-nighter?” she asked.

I checked my watch. “Could be. We’ve invited some of Brenda Croteau’s old playmates in for a grilling session. Might take a while.”

She got up and gave me a kiss. “Okay. See ya later.”

I watched her go, caught between wanting to leave with her and knowing it wouldn’t make any difference. Throughout our relationship, our jobs had paradoxically become the same haven other people made out of spending time off together, or having a family. Fundamentally, we were two loners, and if, as I feared, we were to go our separate ways, it would probably be as natural a transition as when a normal couple decides to move into a smaller apartment after the kids leave home.

No big deal.