The Disposable Man

Chapter 22

Tony Brandt and I sat in a small conference room down the hall from Jack Derby’s office. It was two weeks after the FBI, accompanied by Gil Snowden and members of the Vermont State Police, had plucked us from the center of Edvard Kyrov’s vengeful crew.

There had been a flurry of bureaucratic activity since then, during which we survivors had been questioned, debriefed, and discussed behind closed doors like problematic visitors from a distant planet. Gail alone had been cleared almost immediately-a right, she’d asserted later with a laugh, awarded to all deputy state’s attorneys who’d been kidnapped on the job.

Rarig, Padzhev, and, as it turned out, Anatoly had been taken to the hospital in various states of disrepair, where they were all recovering. Lew Corbin-Teich, after a long talk with Snowden, returned to Middlebury and teaching, having decided his blown cover mattered little in a post-Soviet world. Snowden had also had a chat with Rarig, although less, I thought, to debrief him, and more to rub in the fact that it was he who’d joined forces with Tony to save us after hearing of Sammie’s SOS. I didn’t doubt this would have little effect on Rarig’s paranoia, confident that he’d come up with some wild theory to explain it.

I, on the other hand, was perfectly happy to accept things at face value again, including the fact that the mugging in Washington had in fact been just that. Snowden showed me DC police documentation revealing that my attacker had been caught trying to stick another tourist in the ribs a week after I’d left town, and had been ruled insane by the court. More nut than predator, he hadn’t been after money but thought he was ordained to rid the city of trespassers-which explained why he’d been lurking around a war memorial instead of some back alley.

That conversation had taken place at our house, over coffee, and I’d taken the opportunity to ask Snowden some additional questions, like why I’d been invited down to see him in the first place.

“I had to find out what was going on,” he’d told me. “We’d seen the articles about Antonov’s death and had Philpot confirm his identity at the ME’s office in Burlington. I knew how tight Antonov was with Padzhev, and that Padzhev was involved in a major power struggle back home, with international implications. But I was also in a bind. I couldn’t ask the FBI to run the case, since no federal crime had been committed, and we’re not allowed to operate on U.S. soil. So, I figured if I asked you to Washington, your suspicions might push you to dig deeper than you might otherwise. The mugging was a happy coincidence, falling right into my lap-I used it to spur you on. I actually didn’t even know about it till you told me. And I did my best later to keep you interested-I told the RCMP, for example, about Antonov being a point man for the Mafia and asked them to leak it to you.”

“Then why did you run interference for Rarig?” I’d asked. “Pulling his high school pictures just before they were mailed to us?”

He’d shaken his head at the memory. “With Olivia Kidder suddenly involved, it was getting out of hand. I wanted to slow things down a little.” He’d paused then and added, “I’m sorry you got so messed up in the process. If I’d known Padzhev was going to plant that brooch on you, I never would’ve used you as a bird dog in the first place. Things got away from me.”

His commiseration had sounded nice, but I hadn’t kidded myself. I knew damn well that if he’d had to do it over again, he wouldn’t have changed his tactics much. It wasn’t in the nature of either the man or the organization he worked for to treat people like me as anything more than pawns.

Perhaps responding to this, I’d needled him a bit. “Rarig said you’re a crooked, ambitious, well-connected backstabber-and implied Padzhev’s had you in his pocket since the mid-seventies.”

Snowden had only laughed, denying none of it. “Yeah, I know. That’s why I love how this turned out. It’s driving him nuts seeing me look good.”

Of the Russians I was told little. The feds had gathered them up, the dead and the living, to be taken to parts unknown, but I did find out Kyrov himself had slipped through the net. I’d worried that their taking possession of Padzhev might end any chances I had of clearing my name, but Padzhev had come clean, and Snowden made sure the Vermont Attorney General’s Office knew how and by whom the brooch had been planted in my jacket pocket.

Other legal details had been addressed: Rarig’s disposal of Antonov’s body, Willy and Sam’s unorthodox view of their job descriptions, and, of course, the little matter of my violating those court-issued conditions.

All but the last were being handled with “extenuating circumstances” kept firmly in mind, although Tony had been sorely tempted to rid himself of an utterly unrepentant Willy Kunkle, something Sammie had headed off by saying that if he went, she did, too. Not that I’d believed Tony in the first place-he’d ended up barely slapping their wrists.

I was beyond such special treatment, of course. My problems went outside the department. They even exceeded Judge Harrowsmith’s reach, had he been inclined to help. By ignoring almost every condition levied upon me, I had guaranteed my own dismissal from the police force and unwittingly awarded Fred Coffin at least a consolation prize.

Which was why Tony and I were now sitting in Derby’s conference room. All I could rally in my defense was a lifetime in law enforcement, a good performance record, and the hope that Vermont’s small cadre of decision makers might see their way clear to making an exception in my case. But those were slim chances. I had thumbed my nose at the court, regardless of circumstances. Even if they didn’t hit me with time, fine, or probation, I’d still be saddled with the commission of a crime. And thereby lose my career.

There’d been but one strategy left, and to his credit, Jack Derby had thought of it. Since there seemed to be no way to duck this particular legal bullet, Derby had called on the one man in the state with the power to make it simply disappear.

The door opened and Derby stepped in, accompanied by Gail. “Thought you’d like to see a friendly face,” he said, as they both sat down.

I watched them cautiously. “Do I need one?”

Derby laughed, removing any doubts. “Just so you can celebrate. The governor’ll be granting you a pardon later this week. Your record’s clean.”

I’d been preparing myself for a likely disappointment, knowing pardons were all but unheard of, especially from a tough-on-crime governor like our current one. Now I didn’t know what to say.

Derby removed the need, his own obvious glee needing further outlet. “Better still,” he added, “it also means Fred Coffin’s been handed his lunch by the same man he was ass-kissing for a judgeship. I love it when irony works in your favor. Apparently the governor’s a big fan of yours-and not so big on ambitious nitpickers.”

“Coffin’s been fired?” I asked, stunned by such a reversal of fortune.

“Oh, no, although he’ll probably wish he had been. He’s still at the AG’s, and unless he quits, nobody’ll let him forget how this turned out. Given his track record, payback’ll be terrible.”

He paused, brought up short by having flown his colors so openly. When he spoke again, it was in a much more muted tone. “Well,” he inaudibly slapped the tabletop and rose to his feet, “I’ll leave you to it. Congratulations, Joe. I couldn’t be happier for you.”

He leaned forward, shook my hand, and was gone.

Tony got up also, smiling to himself. “I didn’t realize Fred had pushed his buttons quite so hard. Interesting working in a state this small.”

He paused at the door, looking back at me. “See you tomorrow morning?” I smiled and nodded. “Thanks, Tony. I appreciate it.”

He shrugged. “I blame it all on Kunkle. He’s a bad influence on you.”

I sat still, staring at the polished tabletop after he’d left, lost in thought. Gail reached out and squeezed my hand. “How’re you doin’?”

I leaned forward and kissed her knuckles. “Let’s get out of here.”

Jack Derby’s office was on the second floor of a bank building located downtown on Main Street. When we stepped out onto the sidewalk, the evening rush hour was clogging the road. Brattleboro wasn’t designed for heavy traffic and had never figured out how to deal with it. I looked up and down the block, thinking of all I’d seen happen in this town, feeling a great sense of relief to be back on familiar ground.

“You didn’t answer,” Gail said, her hand in mine.

That I hadn’t, although less from willfulness than from simple inability. Inside, I was still as cut up and bloody as I’d felt sitting in court, listening to Coffin describe me as the frustrated, impotent, older boyfriend of a rich, indulgent woman. Self-serving name-calling by an arrogant politician, perhaps, but with elements of painful truth. Combined with everything else that had been hitting me at the time, such debasement had seemed in context. But I hadn’t been a total victim through all this. Few people truly are. Ahead of me was the task of sorting through the extent and nature of my own culpability-alone and with care. And that included scrutinizing Coffin’s portrayal of my relationship with Gail.

I gently squeezed her fingers, and led her toward the crosswalk. “I’m okay. But I’ll feel better after you treat me to a Dunkin’ Donut.” Gail came along without comment, but I felt her eyes on me as we waited for the light to turn green.