The Disposable Man

Chapter 4

I waited until J.P. Tyler pulled his head out of the rental car’s trunk before breaking what I thought had been an extraordinarily gracious silence. Locked into a stuffy, windowless garage to ensure the integrity of a potential crime scene, Sammie and I had watched him powder, scratch, vacuum, and snip at almost every surface the car had to offer, receiving very little information for our patience.

As Sammie took another surreptitious glance at her oversized watch, however, I thought a break in the pattern was due.

“So, J.P., what’re we looking at? Good news?”

He was holding a plastic spray bottle in one hand, and a flashlight rigged with a dark red filter in the other. His expression read of slightly veiled irritation. He was not a man who enjoyed an audience.

“It’s got promise.”

He crossed over to a long workbench against the wall and exchanged what he was carrying for some nail scissors and a small evidence envelope. Sammie sighed but kept her peace.

I did not. J.P. had milked this as much as I was going to let him. Besides, I could tell from his barely perceptible smile that he felt he’d already won the game. He could afford to be magnanimous.

“So spit it out.”

He placed the scissors on the car’s bumper. “It’s no home run, but it’s better than what we had. I lifted several fingerprints from the interior, most of which look like they match our John Doe. That would make him the probable renter of the car, in my book. There are others, here and there-kind of in odd places, actually, which make me think they came from someone on the rental company’s cleaning crew. But that’s about it. The rest are smudges, which might’ve come from anyone. The nice thing is that what I got is very clear. Rentals are much better than regular cars that way-almost like clean blackboards, as far as fingerprints are concerned. Once we locate the franchise he got this from, we’ll check their time and personnel files, find out who cleaned it, and see if we can rule out the other prints.”

He then shrugged. “Unfortunately, that’s about it for the interior. I’ll run the dirt I found on the gas pedal by the crime lab, along with what I vacuumed from the seats, but I don’t expect much. And there was basically nothing else-no candy wrappers, no personal items, not even a road map. And,” he held up a finger, “no luggage. It’s almost like he drove the car a hundred feet and then abandoned it.”

“Or someone made it look that way,” Sammie added.

“Or he did himself,” I said, the visitors from the FBI still fresh in my mind.

They both looked at me.

I explained. “Nothing else about him seems normal. The suit, the belt knife, the tattoos, even the way he was killed. They’re all pretty weird. Why not the possibility that he cleaned out his own rental car before dumping it? The one thing we haven’t even bothered with so far is figuring out what someone like this was even doing here.”

Sammie chewed on that for a moment, and then asked J.P., “Was the steering wheel wiped clean?”

He shook his head dismissively. “No, but it didn’t need to be. Steering wheels are lousy for prints. Everything ends up smudged.”

He turned toward the trunk again. “Anyhow, none of that’s the really interesting part. I found bloodstains on the carpeting back here.”

I stood next to him and stared into the dark recesses of the immaculately empty trunk. “A lot?”

“Enough for analysis. I’ll send some clippings to the lab and have them cross-check the DNA with John Doe’s.”

I shook my head. “No. What I meant was the ME said his carotid had been cut, that he’d lost enough blood to affect lividity. If all that blood’s not here, it’s got to be somewhere else.”

J.P. nodded. “So we either have a seriously stained site somewhere, or a blanket or tarp that’s soaked in the stuff.”

We all stared at the car in silence. Finally-hopefully-I muttered, “Well, that’s something,” although none of us were entirely sure what that was.

That night, the bedroom was dark and empty. Gail was in her office at the end of the hall, nestled in an oversized armchair and surrounded by the stacks of paperwork that seemed to follow her like doting pets. Not that I was any better. I’d been doing some late-night homework myself.

I leaned over and kissed her forehead, jostling her reading glasses with my chin.

“Hey, kiddo,” she said. “Did you get hold of Walter?”

I’d told her of Walter Frazier’s visit to Hillstrom’s lab. I found a narrow clearing in the middle of a small couch opposite her and settled down. “Yeah. I thought I’d wait till after hours. I figured if the FBI was being coy, maybe he’d share a few secrets off the record. We’ve worked pretty well together before-he doesn’t play the Bureau’s usual game of excluding local law enforcement.”

She removed her glasses and polished them against her shirtfront. “And did he share?”

“Oh, yeah-no problem. I could’ve spared myself the cloak-and-dagger. He said it was standard practice for the Bureau to ride shotgun when another federal agency needs to fish in home waters without a license.”

She stopped polishing and looked at me closely, suddenly caught by the excitement I’d been stifling. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

I laughed, still incredulous about my discovery. “Remember Philpot? The guy I told you about? Turns out he’s CIA, dispatched from Boston on orders from Langley.”

Early the following morning, Ron Klesczewski stepped into my office with a single sheet of paper, which he laid on my desk.

“Just came in-the Logan Airport branch of that rental car company. We faxed ’em the John Doe photo, which they definitely matched, and they kicked this back. Interesting reading-mostly for what it doesn’t say.”

I sat forward and peered at the document under the light from my desk lamp. It was a rental application filled out in the name of Boris Malik. “Address: Paris; driver’s license: international, original issue Lebanon; company address: Moscow.”

I stopped reading and sat back. “Let’s follow this up-push whatever buttons you need to gain access to all passenger lists on international flights arriving at Logan in the three hours before he rented that car.”

The intercom buzzed and the dispatcher’s voice floated into the room. “Joe, you have a call on three-the caller wouldn’t leave his name.”

I punched the speakerphone on. “Hello?”

“Lieutenant Gunther?” The man’s tone was soft, almost sleepy.

“Yes.”

“Would you mind taking this call off the loudspeaker?”

I looked at Ron and motioned to him to pick up the phone on the desk just outside my office. I already had a sneaking suspicion who this might be-or at least where he was calling from.

At a nod from me, Ron and I lifted our receivers simultaneously. “This better?” I asked.

“Much-thank you. I assume you either have someone listening in or a tape recorder running. That’s not a problem. I just thought it might be more discreet not to have this conversation broadcast all over the station.”

I put my feet up on the desk. “What’s on your mind?”

“My name is Gil Snowden. I’m calling from Virginia about a John Doe you recently discovered.”

“That reminds me of a guy I met once,” I said. “Years ago-very clean-cut, well spoken, an obvious Ivy Leaguer-who told me he’d gone to college in New Haven. Are you being coy that way, too?”

He allowed a theatrically embarrassed chuckle, and said, “Okay, I work for the CIA. I was wondering if you’d be interested in having a conversation. It might help you put this case to bed.”

He left it hanging there. Ron raised his eyebrows at me questioningly.

“You mean down there?” I asked.

“It would be friendlier face to face.”

I tried looking at the possible angles, but had no idea where to start. “I’ll have to get back to you,” I hedged. “I’m not my own boss here.”

“Not a problem,” Snowden answered smoothly and gave me a phone number. “Call me any time.”

Tony Brandt swiveled his chair around so he could stare out the window, two fingertips of his right hand just grazing his lower lip. It was at moments like this that I knew he missed his pipe the most.

“Frazier didn’t tell you anything?”

“Supposedly, Philpot-if that is his name-didn’t tell him anything. Frazier asked who the guy was, hoping for a little buddy-buddy breach of confidentiality. All he got was a one-liner about how the Agency had been looking for someone, but that our John Doe wasn’t him-that they had no idea who he was.”

Brandt’s eyes stayed fixed outside. “And you’re not swallowing that.”

“Not when Snowden tells me he can put the case to bed. They’re obviously reading from two different playbooks-one says to stiff us, and the other to scratch our ears till we roll over and go to sleep.”

“Then why go to Langley? Won’t they just shovel you more bullshit?”

I turned both my palms heavenward. “What else have we got? A virtually dry-cleaned body, a near-sterilized car, and not a single murmur from all the inquiries we sent out. Ron told me this morning we’re not even getting crank calls for the picture we put in the papers. That’s a first. I’m not saying Snowden’s going to spell everything out like he’s implying. But I am hoping he’ll let some thing slip.”

Brandt finally turned back to face me. “We can’t afford to fly you down.”

I don’t often travel beyond the three states surrounding Vermont, but when I do, I’m amazed at my small world’s insularity. There are just over half a million Vermonters-not quite as many, it seemed, as were crowding the Boston-New York-DC corridor the day I drove south. Like the sole contemplative member of some gigantic herd, I began to wonder if I was even remotely in control of my choice of destinations, or merely being influenced by some massive migratory urge. Trucks, cars, pickups, and upscale four-by-fours by the thousands, along with their apparently transfixed drivers, seemed as drawn by the same irresistible magnetism that was pulling me along.

And that was just the most immediate contrast. Beyond the traffic was the scenery, slowly changing from farmland to mall to suburb to something that eventually looked like a city without end, punctuated now and then by a sudden upthrust of taller buildings, appearing like some cataclysmic collision between tectonic plates.

Which may be, in fact, what makes the approach to downtown Washington as unique as it is, at least from the north. Where Hartford, Springfield, New York, Baltimore, and all the rest have recognizable city centers projecting a sense of purpose, DC is essentially flat, lacking the glass-and-steel towers most other urban clusters erect to justify their existence.

From the outskirts, there is only a gradual sense that the gritty, commercialized, outlying carpet has yielded to something more focused. Trees appear alongside avenues, traffic becomes leavened with buses, taxis, and the occasional limo, and the buildings-increasingly pompous by the mile, if no taller-cease being either residence or business, and become that third, more mysterious creature: the government office, where things indefinable, arcane, and even faintly menacing are allowed full leash.

I headed west of the city, to a cheap but survivable motel in suburban Arlington that Tony Brandt had recommended. It was within walking distance of a Metro station, and thus all of DC, allowing me to move without the hassle of looking for a parking place.

This convenience had nothing to do with my trip’s stated goal, of course. CIA headquarters are in Langley, Virginia, northwest of Washington, and far from any subway system. My desire to reach downtown was purely sentimental, for the city, whatever its faults, does one thing remarkably well: it honors the dead, sometimes with admirable emotional flair. From soldiers to politicians to leaders of various causes, all seem to be remembered on a sliding scale of tastefulness. My appointment with Snowden wasn’t until the next morning, and by leaving home well before sunrise, I’d purposely given myself enough time to visit two of Washington’s less-touted memorials.

The air was hot and muggy, even late in the afternoon, so it was with some relief that I dropped off my bag at the motel and immediately sought refuge in the Metro’s air-conditioned depths, bound for Judiciary Square station.

On my way to pay homage to a few specific dead, I pondered once more the man whose death had stimulated this trip.

The mystery surrounding most killings, of course, is not in discovering who did it. By and large, that’s as challenging as following a trail of blood from one room to the next, where some distraught friend or family member is found holding the weapon. The mystery is in the why-why this person? Why now? Why this sudden rage?

If we actually do have a situation where the culprit is not in the immediate vicinity, then we’re usually faced with two alternatives: a series of leads that takes us to someone we can then present to the State’s Attorney, or-on very rare occasions-a dead end that grows more hopeless by the day.

The investigation I was facing, however, followed neither of those norms. While apparently a dead end, it also seemed to be growing in scope. Invited to a city renowned for its lack of clarity, I had no illusions that the CIA would lift the veil from my eyes. Which left me wondering what I was being drawn into-and why.

Although quiet, smooth, and remarkably clean-attributes for which the Washington Metro was justifiably famous-the subway ride to Judiciary Square was long and predictable, and by the time I arrived, my mind had been dulled by the blurred succession of trains, stations, and thousands of blank faces sealed behind glass. The familiar discomfort of being in close quarters with so many withdrawn people had begun to envelop me.

I half fled for the exit, toward fresh air and open space, climbing flight after flight of stairs, dogged by the memory that Washington’s subway system had supposedly been designed to double as a bomb shelter. When I finally reached the foot of the last steep escalator and looked up the sun-bleached exit shaft, I saw the sweltering swatch of flame-blue sky with the same relief I’d felt upon entering the Metro’s air-conditioning earlier.

The illusion of returning to the land of the living was just that, however, since the escalator delivered me to the heart of my destination-the broiling hot, dazzlingly bright National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. From a cool, muted subterranean world of stone-faced commuters, I’d ascended into a three-acre, oval frying pan made of white-hot marble, in which, at the moment, I was the only human being.

The memorial, with an imposing bronze plaque at its center depicting an officer’s shield superimposed by a single rose, extends out in a series of widening topographical parentheses, made variably of colonnades, trees, and shaded walkways, and finally, at its outermost edges, of two pathways banked by a continuous, curved, knee-high marble wall, inscribed with the names of over fourteen thousand law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty.

Only a few years old, the memorial reflects several standard monument styles-from archways to statuary to a shallow pool of running water. But the most effective is an homage to the style of the Vietnam Memorial, wherein a seemingly endless list of names is arranged as randomly as the ways in which those officers were slain.

Sweat already trickling down my sides, I crossed to a softbound directory housed in a weatherproof case and squinted against the sun to look up three names: Frank Murphy, John Woll, and Dennis DeFlorio.

All had been members of my department-Murphy, the man I’d replaced as chief of detectives; Woll, a young patrolman; and DeFlorio, one of my own squad. But contrary to the implied heroism of this formal, austere setting, none of these friends had died catching bullets intended for the civilians they’d served. Murphy had been killed in a mundane car crash, Woll’s murder had been staged to resemble a suicide, which by that time his own miseries had made all too believable, and DeFlorio had been blown apart by a car bomb.

I collected the reference numbers for each of them and entered the tree-canopied pathway to find their names, grateful for the shade, reminded of the dense, multihued woods of Vermont. As I sat on the rounded stone bench facing the inscribed wall, exchanging silent greetings with my three friends, my chagrin became less for their loss and-typical of most mourners, I think-turned back onto myself. I began recalling all that had brought me up to this point-the daily exposure to despair, deception, and misconduct-and wondered why I’d made some of the choices I had.

Law enforcement had never entered my mind as a youth on the farm, any more, I guessed, than it had those of most of the people now etched on this wall. But somehow that’s where we’d all ended up, perhaps wanting to be of use to others, or seeking shelter against the vagaries of a capricious upbringing, maybe hoping to find some measure of elusive self-confidence. There are those who believe police officers become so merely to compensate for personal inadequacies. But by and large, I’d found that most cops just sort of end up in the job, after which the good ones do their best to make it count, despite the airless niche in which society has placed them.

In the final analysis, it was the pure normalcy of the people on this wall, and that they’d died doing something few people understood, that saddened me most.

I stayed there until the sun had dipped low enough on the horizon that I no longer needed the trees for protection, and then I headed off on foot to complete the second half of my pilgrimage.

The Korean War Memorial, located near the base of the Lincoln Memorial, was so new it didn’t appear on most tourist maps. Almost a half century old, with casualties rivaling Vietnam-although lasting a mere fraction of that struggle’s length-Korea’s conflict remained a footnote war, treated almost as a post-World War Two afterthought-a fact the memorial’s too recent appearance served more to highlight than to dispel.

Returning to the United States after my stint in it, I’d been struck by the lack of fanfare greeting us, especially given what vets had encountered a mere seven years earlier. At the time, I’d been deeply offended, feeling my teenage sacrifices had been cavalierly dismissed. Now, I knew such reserve probably had more to do with the nation’s emotional numbness. The Nazi/Japanese Axis had bathed the globe in blood, and the Soviets were threatening to do the same using nuclear weapons. What chance was there for a local boundary squabble, so equivocally viewed by our own leaders that they avoided calling it a war? It would be fifteen more years before the country took a deep breath and voiced its outrage over Vietnam. And by then Korea, never resolved in any case, had been all but forgotten.

Brought low by the long drive, the listless subway ride, the blistering barrenness of the law officers memorial, and my own ruminations about a case without issue, I worked to clear my head by walking all the way, even though it was almost a mile and a half distant. I stopped to eat a sandwich at a neighborhood deli and saw my first sustained human interaction since leaving home. The counter people were loud and gregarious and treated their customers with the casual irreverence of long-standing friends. It was an easy, open exchange, as restorative as the food I ate, and sent me on my way in a much better mood, as I rationalized that much of what had been plaguing me was no more than a provincial prejudice against a huge urban environment.

It was dark by the time I reached the reflecting pool but not much cooler. The tradeoff for walking had been a reminder of just how tenacious southern heat can be. It radiated off the sidewalk, as from a wood stove in the middle of winter, and filled the air-in a startling paradox-with the familiar parched odor of warm silage, the acres of cropped grass around me substituting for the farm fields of memory. The jacket I’d been wearing had gone from being slung over my shoulder to being held uncomfortably in one sweaty hand.

But I had no complaints. This part of Washington, especially at night, subdued most petty complaints with its sheer wide-open majesty. The pale-lit Washington Monument, a red beacon at its apex, looked otherworldly in the surrounding darkness, its daytime absurdity replaced by the mysterious murmurings of its Egyptian forebears. And its aura spread outward like a thin mist, snagging on the spotlit architectural oddities that belted the Mall like an ancient ring of mountains. I took it all in, from the Capitol to the museums to the gargantuan, recumbent federal buildings, with the happy acceptance of a willing tourist. I walked the length of the quarter-mile pool-Lincoln’s tomb-like tribute reflecting in the water like a ghost-and yielded utterly to the theater of it all, using the countless historical cues to carry me back to my past.

Finally, thus summoned, a pale scattering of distant shadows caught my eye through the trees to the left and brought my journey to an end. I stood stock still in the darkness, in the here and now, and saw the defining image of myself as a nervous, isolated teenager on the threshold of self-discovery.

Scattered across a gently stepped slope, only barely illuminated by concealed, muted spotlights, a company of soldiers silently hovered in the gloom, as if frozen in mid-step by the distant, dying flash of a random artillery flare.

I abandoned the sidewalk and cut across the warm grass, all discomfort forgotten, transfixed by the nineteen nebulous bronze statues that formed the centerpiece of the Korean War Memorial. As I approached, their details emerged, commingling with memory. Clad in windswept ponchos, their weapons held with the ready casualness of umbrellas or shovels, they were lean with hunger, fatigue, and worry, and their faces, barely caressed by the thoughtfully directed light, were by degrees exhausted, pensive, frightened, and resigned. The closer I got, the more clearly I could see the slightly blurry photographs I’d sent my mother from beyond the ocean, and that reside still in the albums by her side.

It is a beautiful monument, low-key and reflective. A mixed service company of slightly larger-than-life soldiers-sculpted by a fellow Vermonter-ascends a series of shallow, planted terraces reminiscent of rice paddies. Ahead of them is a pool and a flagpole, to their right a low, black polished granite wall, sandblasted with the smoky images of over a thousand people looking out, like half-seen specters, representing the millions who served with the likes of me. The countries that contributed to this ephemeral, poorly remembered effort are etched in stone, along with the numbers of people sacrificed-over fifty-four thousand of them. It is a quiet place, designed for pensiveness and reminiscence, and alone in the night I gave in to just that, slowly pacing the walkway that encircled the site.

That quiet, however, was offset by occasional urban interruptions, the most jarring of which were periodic low-flying jets heading for the nearby airport. I was strolling in an easterly direction when a particularly noisy example made me stop in my tracks and turn around to watch. Instead of focusing on a startlingly close airplane, however, I came face-to-face with a rough-looking, bearded man standing a mere ten feet behind me. He and I, witnessed by nineteen well-armed silent soldiers, were the only ones within sight.

At first, he seemed as surprised as I was, his eyes widening and his body stiffening, and then he whirled around as I had and stared down the empty walkway. He looked back at me, his eyes suspicious.

“Whaddya lookin’ at?” His voice was slurred and thick.

“You,” I admitted.

“What’s wrong with me?”

“I don’t know. What’re you doing here?”

His mouth set in an angry line. “You sayin’ I can’t be here?”

“Not necessarily.”

He considered that, found it acceptable, and loosened his stance, looking almost athletic in the process. He wasn’t old-at most in his mid-thirties-and his clothes, while far from city wear, were more rough than ragged.

He gave me a conspiratorial smile. “You do me a favor?”

He took a couple of paces toward me, which I didn’t like. Only half consciously, I moved my jacket before me, holding it loosely in both hands.

“I need some money,” he continued. “I gotta get enough for bus fare. You give me something?”

I stepped back as he drew nearer, the hairs on my neck tingling. “Isn’t this a pretty strange place to be looking for bus fare?”

His eyes narrowed, and his right hand dipped to his side. There was a metallic click and a flash of reflected light. I surprised him by leaping forward, the jacket held taut between my fists. He came up with the knife, startled by my sudden proximity, and I caught the blade in the folds of the coat, twisting it away and to one side. Inches from his face now, enveloped in his breath, I saw his mouth open in pain as he let out a shout. I then brought my knee up between his legs with all my strength.

The results were mixed. On TV that would’ve been the end of it. In fact, as he crumpled, he grabbed me around the neck with his free arm, rolled with his hips, and sent me staggering toward the nearest soldier. I tripped over the low curb separating the walkway from the terracing and stumbled with a dull clang into the statue, twisting around to keep my eyes on my assailant.

I’d dropped my coat in the process, the knife still within it, and it now lay between us on the ground. Doubled over, one hand clutching his groin, he dove for it the same time I did, just as a clear shout rang out in the night.

“Police. Stop where you are.”

I got to the jacket first, but only because my opponent pulled up at the last second, rabbit-punching me in the neck instead of fighting for the knife. As I collapsed onto the cement, the flat switchblade hard against my chest, I saw him run off into the darkness toward Independence Avenue.

Heavy footsteps ran up behind me. “Don’t move.”

I twisted around to look up at a young patrolman, standing over me with a gun in his hand. “I’m the victim.”

He looked at me nervously and then glanced up to where the other man had vanished.

“I’m also a cop,” I continued, very slowly reaching for my back pocket. “I’m going for my badge.”

I extracted the worn leather folder and flipped it open.

The patrolman slowly lowered his gun, his disappointment complete. “Shit.”

The DC police were sympathetic and helpful, giving me aspirin and an ice pack for my neck. They listened patiently to my account, took a few notes, and when they were done, they even drove me to my Arlington motel. But I wasn’t asked to look through any mug books, or to give a detailed description to an artist, and when the switchblade was recovered, I noticed no effort being made to preserve any fingerprints. What I’d suffered, I was told, was a typical attempted mugging-one of the mandatory accessories of any large city. I was wished a pleasant visit, given a generalized apology for having witnessed the back end of the welcome wagon, and left to my own devices.

That night, however, as I lay watching the passing car lights play across my ceiling, I found myself unable to be as casually dismissive. While not a city dweller, I still knew the makeup of the average mugger. The man I’d wrestled with had not been such a creature. I’d sensed duplicity and purpose in his eyes, beyond the presence of any cash in my wallet.

As the hours slipped by, the more I replayed what had happened, the more I believed our meeting to have been no simple random act.