The Ragman's memory

19

The meeting started late-testimony to the number of people who had been asked to attend. The whole squad was there, along with Jack Derby, Tony Brandt, Gail, our head of Patrol, Bill Manierre, and three of his people-Sol Stennis, Marshall Smith, and a new transplant from the Burlington PD with ten years’ prior experience, Sheila Kelly. Kelly was here because much of the last three years on her previous job had been spent on financial fraud cases.

I leaned forward and rapped the conference room’s tabletop with my knuckles. The buzz of conversation slowly subsided. “I just hung up on the Medical Examiner. Adele Sawyer is now an official homicide. That means we’ve got to reorganize and reassign the cases we’ve been working on. So far we have Mary Wallis-missing under suspicious circumstances; Milo Douglas-dead from rabies, but through no known means of infection; Shawna Davis-cause of death unknown but considered a homicide; the hotel/convention center complex project-possible shenanigans ranging from corruption to blackmail; and now Adele Sawyer. Some of these cases overlap, but for clarity’s sake I’m keeping them separate.”

“Given the workload we’re facing, I’m moving Milo and Shawna to the back burner. Nothing new has come up on either one of them, and if we’re right about Shawna’s close ties to Mary Wallis, then I’d just as soon put more heat under the Wallis case, on the chance she might still be alive.”

I got up and went over to the white board mounted on the wall, a felt-tipped marker in hand. “Because, despite some differing opinions in this room, I don’t think Wallis took off under her own power. I think she was grabbed. She knew something, and someone was afraid she would eventually tell it to us.”

I wrote “Shawna” and “Milo” next to each other at the top left corner of the board but left the spaces below them blank. “Unfortunately, while Mary Wallis is a top priority, we’re stuck for options on what to do for her. We’ve put everything available into motion. Photos and descriptions have been issued to all major agencies in New England, along with the bigger newspapers. The Reformer has agreed to play the story big and get it on the wire services. And each of her personal contacts has been asked to let us know as soon as they hear anything. We’ve been reduced to waiting for a break.”

I wrote “Mary” on the board and left it blank under her, also. “Okay-the building project. This one gets a little more complicated. Ron, Gail, and Justin Willette worked together to come up with a few possibilities here. There’s a chance that during the permitting process, the wheels might’ve been greased to speed things along. One person has claimed he was coerced to support the deal.”

I glanced at Gail, who merely nodded her assent. “Ned Fallows,” I went on, “says Tom Chambers blackmailed him with proof of some prior malfeasance, the nature of which Fallows won’t identify.”

There was a predictable muttering around the table.

“Fallows is also saying he won’t corroborate that story, no matter how much pressure we put on him.”

“Screw him,” Willy said. “Hit him with a subpoena and force him to talk.”

“About what?” I asked. “Right now all we’ve got are two conversations I had with him. His attitude is that if he clams up, we’ll have no proof he was forced to vote for the convention project-nor will we find out what crime he committed in the first place. We need to do the same digging Tom Chambers did to force Fallows to spill the beans.”

“And that,” I waved a hand in his direction, “is what I want Ron to do.”

I put “Chambers” and “Fallows” up on the board under the heading “Project” and drew an arrow connecting Ron’s name to Fallows’. “We’ve also got a few other players we need to look at.” I added Eddy Knox, Rob Garfield, and Lou Adelman’s names. “These three are only guilty of being unusually supportive of the project so far. We need to examine their lifestyles, bank accounts, past histories, and finally conduct interviews with them. I’d like Sammie spearheading that, working with Marshall Smith.”

I wrote all that down, with more arrows, and then circled “Tom Chambers” in red. “Here’s the catch. How to dig into the town’s richest political hotshot-not to mention one of our esteemed leaders-without his catching wind of it. The answer, I hope, lies in Chambers being the one common denominator among everyone in this group,” I tapped Fallows’s name and the three men Sammie and Marshall were assigned to. “Plus Harold Matson, the Bank of Brattleboro’s president.” I added his name to the list.

“The B of B got its fat saved by Ben Chambers. If we think the permitting process was tainted, there’s a chance the funding was, too. J.P., find out how the financing was put together. I want you to work with Sheila Kelly-her expertise in this area should be an asset.

“Assuming Fallows is right about NeverTom Chambers being corrupt, my hope is we’ll be able to catch Chambers in a pincer movement, between what we can get from the zoning and planning people, and what we can find out about the recent financial bailout. My other hope is that by following this approach, it might lead us to finding out what happened to Mary Wallis.”

There was a muted stirring among most of the people in the room. I capped the pen in my hand and let them quiet back down. “For those of you who think we’re putting too many eggs in one basket by focusing on the building project, let me remind you how we all agreed earlier that coincidence was a bad thing to rely on.” I waved my hand at the board behind me. “Well, if all this isn’t coincidence, then what ties it together? The convention center has cropped up-however vaguely-with Milo, Mary Wallis, and through Wallis to Shawna Davis. At fifteen million dollars, it’s the biggest real estate deal this town’s ever seen, and that sum doesn’t include the financial benefits a lot of people are hoping will come their way once the center’s up and running.”

I leaned on the conference table with both hands. “We have limited manpower we need to use wisely, to pursue the hottest and most available targets we can locate. It may turn out that Milo died of rabies, pure and simple, and that Shawna was killed for reasons we haven’t even guessed at. But Mary Wallis is still out there-maybe alive-and everyone involved in creating the convention center is identifiable and can be interviewed. On the chance those two are connected, I think this approach is worth the gamble. If anyone disagrees, let’s hear it now.”

“What about Gene Lacaille?” Willy said. “He got the whole thing started.”

“He’s losing his shirt,” Sammie countered. “You know that for a fact?”

I rapped the table again. “Hold it. We should and will look into him, but our caseload is enormous, and we haven’t even mentioned our latest addition.” I turned and wrote “Sawyer” on the board.

“Right now, Lacaille does seem to have lost out heavily in this deal, and it’s unlikely he did that on purpose. So, our priorities and resources being what they are, he’s going to have to take a back seat. But,” I emphasized, “it should be noted that every lead on this board is subject to change. Names will be removed and added as we go along, and I don’t want anyone skipping details just because they don’t fit some particular assignment. Either hand over anything odd to the appropriate investigator, or let me know about it. Also, given the chance that some or all of these investigations might be linked in some way, and that we may end up with more on our plate, I want every new case that comes into this office looked at with a microscope-I don’t care if it’s a ninety-year-old cancer patient who dies in the hospital.” I tapped the white board with my finger. “Everything gets a review in relation to this.”

I wrote Kunkle’s and Sol Stennis’s names under that of Adele Sawyer. “Okay-Willy, find out who knocked her off. This one’s out in the open-it’s already on the radio, and it’s going to be front-page news tomorrow. It’s a whodunit and it has a cast of dozens-the lady was not well liked, the night shift is thinly staffed, and most of the home’s residents are pretty much free to wander. And that’s not even considering someone from the outside. No need to tiptoe-take the place by storm if necessary and get this wrapped up fast. Billy?”

Manierre looked up suddenly, as if I’d interrupted a compelling daydream. “I know, I know-all the help I can spare, especially on the Sawyer case. I’ll juggle the shifts and see what I can do.”

I smiled at his world-weary voice. “Thanks. One last thing, everybody. There’ll be a slight change in Gail’s role as contact person for the SA’s office. As before, if you’ve got questions or are dealing with anything involving town government, go through her first. But if it’s a straight legal question, as with the Sawyer killing, use whoever’s available, like we’ve always done.”

The meeting broke up in piecemeal fashion. I gestured to Gail and led her across the squad room to my office, closing the door behind us.

“You okay with how I handled Ned?” I asked her.

She frowned but gave me a reassuring squeeze of the arm.

“He’s going to have to account for it. It’s too bad he’s doing everything possible to make things worse for himself.”

There was a knock on the door and Willy walked in without waiting for an answer. “I’m guessing,” he said, “that you’ll be riding my back on the Sawyer case?”

“I’ll fill in where I’m needed-on all of them.” Gail got up and headed out, giving me a small wave. I reached for a sheet of paper that was lying on my desk and handed it to Kunkle. “This is what I found out from the Skyview staff and Sawyer’s next of kin. Hillstrom’s report’ll come by fax in an hour or two, but she told me on the phone that it was a two-handed attack, like J.P. thought. How d’you want to tackle this?”

“Interviews first. We know she was whacked between ten p.m. and one in the morning. That ought to help with checking alibis. I don’t know… I thought I’d play it pretty much by ear. That a problem?”

I caught the defiance in his eye. “Not for me.”

He checked his watch. “All right. I’m going to see who Billy can cut loose, and maybe head over there in an hour or so.”

I had been up all night, and was planning to stay up a good part of the night ahead, so, despite the flurry of activity I’d set in motion, I told Harriet where I was headed-and went home to bed.

Under similar past circumstances, this had rarely been a successful ploy. When things got this crazy, turning my brain off became a near impossibility, and I routinely sacrificed the hope of some relief to the reality of a few restless, wakeful hours.

This time, however, I surprised myself. As soon as I was under the covers, I fell into a deep sleep.

Part of this may have been due to sheer exhaustion. But I think I was also comforted by having organized our caseload the way I had. Whether proven right or wrong in the long run, it gave order to what had started to become a chaotic jumble of seemingly unrelated cases. I knew the links between some of them and the convention center project were tenuous right now-a cheap pen, the location of a one-night crash pad, the sudden retreat of a firebrand activist. But I was also confident that mere happenstance hadn’t conspired to hand us five separate major cases simultaneously. There had to be a common thread linking most of them, and I felt we were on the right track to finding it.

Unfortunately, my peaceful eclipse proved relatively short-lived. Three hours after I’d shut my eyes, the phone dragged me back to a world intolerant of daytime sleepers. Not that this particular caller would have hesitated at any hour.

“You’re a hard man to locate,” Stan Katz said cheerfully.

I piled several pillows behind me and sat up. “What d’ya want, Stan?”

“We’re running dual pieces on Wallis and the Sawyer killing. I was wondering what you had to say about them.”

“Talk to Brandt.”

“I did. I’m going for more color-a personal angle.”

“Not from me, you’re not. It’s too early on both cases for that. Give me a couple of days to find out what happened. Then you can have your color.”

“Come on, Joe. I’ve got nothing right now. Didn’t you guys find anything? How ’bout the timing? Do you know if Wallis and Sawyer knew each other?”

“Down boy. If we start hypothesizing in public right now, we’ll only do everyone dirt. We’ll give you the facts as we get them.” I could tell from the pause at the other end how much credibility that carried. “What about the other cases, then?”

“Look-Stanley-I know what you’re up against-”

“Spare me the sympathy, Joe,” Katz interrupted testily. “Just because we’re operating on a shoestring doesn’t make us less viable. We don’t need your help-we deserve a little honesty from our public officials.”

I shrugged at the phone. “All right, how ’bout if you give me some help? Beverly Hillstrom told me this morning that one of your people called her to confirm that Milo Douglas had died of rabies. Who was your source?”

Katz burst out laughing. “You’re kidding, right?”

“You called me for a favor.”

“Meaning you’ll give me something if I tell you?”

“Soon enough.” There was another pause before he finally said, “What the hell, I’ll play. It was an anonymous call-a man. He said, ‘The bum Milo died of rabies-check it out,’ and then hung up.”

Echoes of an earlier conversation I’d had with Kunkle came back to mind. “Did you get another anonymous call about the Satanist inscription on Shawna Davis’s tooth?”

This time, Katz’s silence smacked more of embarrassment. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“I don’t know, Stan. He called you.”

“We thought maybe he was a cop.”

“I’ve pretty much ruled that out.” I hesitated and then added, “My personal guess-off the record-is that we’re dealing with someone who either thinks the publicity will throw us off track, or who needs the limelight for his own self-gratification. I think we’re sniffing around the edges of something pretty significant here, Stan.”

“Damn,” he muttered. “When will you clue me in?”

“Soon as I can-no bullshit.”

He slipped back into his hard-bitten role, like an actor stepping on stage. “I can hardly wait,” he said, and hung up.

Unable to get back to sleep, I returned to the office to deal with several days’ worth of paperwork. The squad room was empty. Everyone had either gone home or was in the field.

Since almost before I could remember, the quiet of an after-hours office was a meditative tonic for me. It gave me an air traffic controller’s view of the world I inhabited-not just the investigations I was working on personally, but bits and pieces of every case currently active in the squad. It supplied me with a sense, however artificial, of being in control.

Nevertheless, by almost ten p.m. I was sick of the paper shuffling.

In truth, my timing was calculated. Sometimes, when in a jam, I had found it helpful to revisit the scene of a crime at the same time of day it had occurred. I therefore got into my cold-stiffened car and drove west toward the Skyview Nursing Home.

The neighborhood around the home was illuminated by periodic street lamps, so I instinctively cut my lights as I entered it, preserving the sense of stealth that might’ve been used had last night’s killer been an intruder.

I was amused, if not surprised, to discover I wasn’t the only one acting out theories. Parked under the last streetlamp, facing the Skyview’s front entrance, was Willy Kunkle’s car, a small plume of exhaust trailing from its muffler. I cut my engine and rolled to a stop as silently as a shadow, settling some ten feet behind him.

It hadn’t been my intention to actually sneak up on him, even after my stealthy approach, but seeing the back of his head, still motionlessly facing forward after I’d quietly emerged from my car, I was bitten by pure gratuitous impulse. Kunkle was a man who took everything and everyone head-on, with no apologies or mercy. He was so assertively in your face, so stridently claiming control at all times, that I couldn’t resist exploiting this one instance of vulnerability.

With no plan in mind, I silently crept forward. I wasn’t moved to smack a snowball against the glass, or pound on the door with my fist, like some of the others would have done in a heartbeat. Merely appearing by his side and bidding him good evening seemed good enough, since I knew the effect would be the same.

But I ended up being the one caught off guard. The reason he’d pulled up under the light, and that I’d been allowed my covert opportunity, was that Willy Kunkle was hard at work. Spread across the steering wheel, held in place by two small spring clips, was a broad, flat artist’s pad, and appearing across its surface, under Willy’s confidently held pencil, was a fanciful rendering of the scene before us-a snow-draped building, half lit by a streetlamp, huddled up against a looming black mass of hills that blended into a star-filled sky. It was beautiful-at once detailed and impressionistic, realistically capturing the night-clad nursing home, and yet endowing it with a grace and charm that escaped the clinical eye.

My astonishment was absolute. I forgot the cold, and my earlier intentions. All was wiped away by this glimpse of a curmudgeon’s heart. Hopefulness, serenity, and insight poured from his pencil as they refused to in his everyday life, and with obviously practiced ease. The clips on the steering wheel were evidence this was a long-standing habit. I had often thought he had to have an outlet to keep his inner core quiet, something he could call his own. That it turned out to be so utterly out of character made me feel at a loss.

I had never felt myself such a trespasser and now wished I had warned him of my approach, giving him time to protect his privacy. Moving twice as furtively, I tried to slip away.

But I’d lingered too long. Responding to some territorial instinct, Willy suddenly turned and caught sight of my shadow. His reaction was startling, frantic, and terrifying, leaving me rooted in place with my hands held up in instinctive surrender. He moved in a blur, slipping from my line of sight, knocking the pad from its perch, sending it sailing to the floor, and reappearing through the half-opened door, crouched behind the very wide barrel of a.357 Magnum.

“You fucking asshole,” he hissed at me through clenched teeth.

“Relax, Willy,” I said calmly, seriously.

“How long you been there?” The gun had not moved-a telling oversight.

“Just got here,” I lied. “What’re you so twitchy about?”

The gun vanished, the door swung wider, and he got out of the car, closing it behind him with his hip. “You’re no cop if you have to ask that.”

It was a typical comment-melodramatic, wrong-headed, and hurtful-which I just as typically ignored. But given my newfound knowledge-and his lingering doubts-I felt entitled to return with a veiled warning shot. “I don’t have as much to hide as you do.”

His eyes narrowed. “Meaning?”

“Nothing.” I glanced toward the building and changed the subject. “It’s almost ten. I take it that’s what you were waiting for.”

When he answered, his words were no softer, but his tone had been muted several notches. My generosity, however roundabout, had been acknowledged. “I thought you said I was running this one.”

“With as much help as you can get.”

He quickly moved into a self-serving compromise. “How ’bout we split up, then? You take the bottom, I take the top.”

Sawyer had been killed on the second floor. I accepted without hesitation.

The only unlocked door at this hour was the front entrance, opening onto the lobby with the guard’s alcove off to one side. He was sitting there now and asked if he could help us. We both showed our badges, and Willy left for the stairwell.

We watched him go, the guard scratching his head. “What’s wrong with his arm? He bust it or something?”

“It’s permanently disabled-sniper bullet, years ago.”

His eyebrows shot up. “And he’s a cop?”

I didn’t bother confirming the obvious. “What’re your hours?” I asked him.

“Ten to six. I just got on… Little early tonight-had to drop off the wife. Other car’s in the shop.”

“You were on last night?”

He suddenly looked uneasy. “Yeah, but I never heard a thing and I didn’t take a nap, like that other guy said-the one who came to my house.”

I didn’t inquire who that had been. I would’ve asked the same question. “What happens when you have to pee?”

He gestured with his thumb. “It’s around the corner, but I lock the front door. It’s a deadbolt, so nobody can get in or out.”

I looked at the telltale bulge of a pack of cigarettes in the left breast pocket of his uniform shirt, and at the “Absolutely No Smoking” sign stuck to the wall behind him.

“You have a flashlight I can borrow?” I asked. Mystified, he handed over a long, black, metal brain-basher. “Be right back,” I told him and left the building. Between the front entrance and the curb was a short, well-shoveled walkway bordered by hedges on both sides. I played the light along where the bushes met the cement until I found what I was looking for-a five-inch-wide gap, leading off into the gloom. Stepping through it, I followed a narrow footpath along the wall for some twenty feet, to the far side of a darkened bay window. There, the path ended at a well-trampled four-foot-wide circle shielded from view by several tall plants. Around the edges of the circle were a dozen dead cigarette butts, all of the same brand.

I cupped my eyes with my hands and pressed my face against the window. Dimly, I could make out a room with several desks in it, with all the earmarks of a business office.

I collected one of the butts from the ground and returned to the lobby.

“Find what you were looking for?” the guard asked as I returned his flashlight.

“Yeah. Let me see your cigarettes.”

His face froze. “What?”

I tapped the counter with my fingertip. Slowly, as if hypnotized, he brought his hand to his breast pocket and removed a pack of Marlboros. He put it on the counter. I laid the butt I’d recovered next to it.

“This is a one-time question. Answer it truthfully, and the conversation stops here. Jerk me around, and you can kiss this job good-bye. Got it?”

He nodded, his eyes fixed on mine.

“When you go outside to smoke, do you lock the door behind you?”

“No,” he barely whispered.

“How often do you do this?”

“Once or twice an hour.”

I picked up the butt and handed it to him. “Thanks.”

I left him and turned right at the back of the lobby, down a wide hallway running the length of the building’s east wing. There were several glass-paneled doors on either side, crowned by decoratively lettered signs advertising each office’s function. Some twenty feet down, on the same side as the building’s front, I came to one labeled “Accounting.”

Again, I cupped my eyes and peered into the darkened room. Not only was it the same office I’d seen moments earlier, but I could easily pick out the tall plants outside the bay window, clearly outlined by the street lamps beyond. A man standing in their midst would cut a clearly distinct silhouette.

I left the east wing for its opposite number and passed through a pair of double doors leading to a section dedicated to the home’s social functions-a dining room with a locked kitchen beyond it, a well-stocked library, an exercise/game room, and-predictably occupied, probably all around the clock-the TV room.

I opened the door and peered into the darkened space. There were six people, either fully dressed or in bathrobes, sitting in sofas and armchairs, all in silent awe of a huge glowing set mounted halfway up the wall. The volume was what I’d expect for a mostly hearing aid crowd, but the door was heavy and insulated, which I assumed was true of the ceiling and walls, too-a thoughtful touch. I retreated and took the elevator upstairs.

Kunkle was in the corridor, leaning with his bad arm against the wall, looking down the length of the empty hallway.

“Got anything?” I asked him.

He tilted his head slightly. “Just getting a feel for the place-the comings and goings. Fair bit of activity for a dump like this. ’Course,” he had to add in the inevitable rejoinder, “most of them just sit there and drool.”

Down the hall, I saw Sue Pasco, now dressed in uniform whites, leave one room to cross over to another, a medicine tray in her hands.

Willy stuck out his chin in her direction. “She’s in the section where old lady Sawyer died. Most of ’em can get around, but they need their regular meds. At the far end is the hard-case unit-the veggies, the nutsos, and whatever else. What’d you find downstairs?”

“The guard’s a smoker. He takes periodic trips outside to feed his habit. He leaves the door unlocked and always goes to the same spot. Getting in is no problem-he can’t see the door from where he hangs out. And getting out is even easier-you can see him through one of the office windows.”

Willy let out a small grunt. “That’s where my money is-an outside hit. I talked to a lot of these geezers this afternoon-and the staff-and no bells went off. They all thought Sawyer was a grade-A bitch, but she wasn’t the first, and everyone knows she won’t be the last. It’s part of the routine here.”

“So why break in to kill her?”

There was a loud shout from down the hall, followed by a distant crash. Sue Pasco appeared in the hallway and then broke into a fast trot toward the double doors at the far end.

“She’s headed for the hard-case unit,” Willy muttered, running after her.

I followed, hearing more as we got closer. Ahead of us Pasco paused to open the door blocking the corridor. It hadn’t quite swung to before we reached it. On the other side, the hall was more brightly lighted, the floor uncarpeted, and the overall look more institutional. A small cluster of people stood before us, looking into a room at the source of the commotion.

Willy and I muscled our way past them to the open doorway. Inside, Sue Pasco was kneeling by a bearded man in a chair, talking to him quietly. Across the room a large muscular orderly was standing almost nose-to-nose with an old man wearing a bathrobe and pajamas.

“Bernie,” the orderly kept saying, “Rolly’s one of the good guys. You know that.”

The old man shouted past him, “Who’s the Splendid Splinter?”

Willy smirked. “Jesus Christ.”

The orderly’s voice was low and gentle. “He doesn’t know, Bernie, but he’s on our side.”

“Who’s Yehudi?” The old man shouted.

I crossed over to Sue Pasco. “What’s going on?”

She looked up, startled to see me. Rolly, her bearded patient, answered me. “That crazy bastard tried to strangle me, that’s what. Says I’m a Kraut spy, that he’s going to force it out of me.”

“Rolly,” she soothed him. “There’s hardly a mark on you. I’m sure it was some misunderstanding.”

“Yeah. Well, I want him locked up from now on. I was asleep, for Christ’s sake. There was no misunderstanding.”

“Who’s the Splendid Splinter?”

“Shut up, you crazy fuck,” Rolly bellowed, rubbing his throat.

“Tell him Ted Williams,” I suggested quietly.

Both Rolly and Sue stared at me. “Just tell him,” I repeated to Rolly.

“Ted Williams,” Rolly said halfheartedly.

“Who’s Yehudi?” was the response.

“The guy who turns off the refrigerator light after you close the door,” I murmured.

“Do it,” Sue urged Rolly.

Rolly unhappily did as he was told.

We heard some quiet discussion between Bernie and the orderly, and then they both approached us. Rolly threw his arms across his face in a dramatic defensive posture. “Get him away from me.”

But Bernie was all smiling apologies, “Rolly, Rolly. I’m real sorry, buddy. Word was out they’d broken through-more spies. They got Johnnie. They talk better English than we do. Dressed in our uniforms, know who we are and where we are. Only way to trip ’em up-ask ’em stuff only a real American knows. I had to know you were the real McCoy, see? For the rest of us.”

His left hand was extended in friendship. The right one was encased in a small cast. After some prodding, Rolly gave Bernie a halfhearted handshake before the orderly escorted the older man out of the room.

“I want him out of here,” Rolly repeated with a little less conviction.

Sue Pasco rubbed his shoulder soothingly. “Rolly. Has he ever done this to you before?”

“It only takes one time.”

“Oh, come on. Besides giving you a bad scare, what was the damage, really?”

Rolly’s outrage climbed a notch. “What’d you mean? You ever been woken up with someone trying to strangle you?”

“If we make a big deal about this, Rolly, he’ll be sent to Waterbury and maybe lose his bed here. You’ve been to Waterbury… You could even go back yourself if things got bad again, like they used to be. You don’t wish that on Bernie, do you?”

Rolly’s eyes widened at the threatening implication, and he nervously rubbed his bristly cheek. “No, I guess not. But keep him away from me, okay?”

She stood up and patted his shoulder. “You got it. We’ll leave you alone so you can get back to bed.”

Rolly nodded, lost in his own thoughts, and Sue escorted Willy and me outside. “Let’s go into the other section. It’s easier to talk there.”

We followed her beyond the corridor’s double doors. She stopped and smiled weakly. “Sorry about that.”

“What’s Bernie’s problem?” Willy asked.

She sighed. “He suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and dementia. He’s also been an alcoholic for the past fifty years and has related, permanent short-term memory loss. Bernie is a Battle of the Bulge vet-he’s shell-shocked, as they used to call it. He spent years in VA hospitals, was finally let go, managed a few decades as a classic ‘normal citizen/closet drinker,’ complete with wife and daughter, and ended up abandoned, broke, and mostly talking about a world that’s been gone for fifty years.” She looked at me gratefully. “Thanks for your help, by the way. How did you know what to say?”

“I’ve read a lot about World War Two, and what he said rang a bell. The Germans did put troops behind our lines in the Battle of the Bulge, dressed in American uniforms. And he was right-once word got out, the real American troops started inventing cultural quizzes, designed to trip up any foreigners. One American general almost got killed because he didn’t know anything about baseball. What did Bernie mean about seeing spies around here, though?”

“That was probably you people,” she answered. “All those interviews this afternoon-men in uniforms he’s not familiar with. We lead a very structured, protected life here-it doesn’t take much to set someone like Bernie off.”

“But we didn’t go into that ward,” Willy countered.

She looked surprised. “It’s not locked. We’re not that kind of facility. We might restrain a resident now and then but only temporarily, to see them over a hump. If they ever got really bad, we’d have to ship them out, like I was telling Rolly. The rest of the time, they can move around the building. We keep a closer eye on them than on the others, but that’s all. I’m sure Bernie saw you and took you for German spies.”

“You said he talks about fifty years ago-does that mean he just keeps refighting the same battle over and over? Wouldn’t that tend to make him violent?”

“Oh no,” she answered emphatically. “I shouldn’t have put it that way. He talks about all sorts of things, not just the war-his daughter, animals, the weather-but it’s all disjointed, like a scrambled recording. What I meant is that the further back in time he gets, the clearer he sounds. It’s still pretty confusing, because he really has no short-term memory at all-he doesn’t remember any of us from day to day-so he tells the same stories again and again, thinking they’re new. He actually doesn’t talk about the war much at all-usually only when he’s upset, like after a nightmare. The war’s the source of his troubles, so he tends to avoid it. That’s why this thing you just saw was such a surprise. I’ve never seen him do anything like it before. It’s almost like something hit a switch inside him.”

“If he’s free to wander around, couldn’t he’ve taken a whack at the old lady?” Willy asked.

Sue Pasco looked horrified, a credit to Willy’s subtle approach. “But he barely touched Rolly. Just because he lost his temper doesn’t make him a killer.”

“He couldn’t’ve done it anyhow,” I said. “He has a cast on his right hand.”

“And that happened two weeks ago,” Pasco volunteered, slightly mollified. “He slipped and fell… Besides, like I said, we keep a pretty close eye on them-room checks every hour on the hour, in fact. That orderly that was talking to him? That’s Harry. He’s like the den mother up here, and at night he keeps a tight rein.”

She paused reflectively. “Something must’ve set him off. It could’ve been something you folks did without realizing it-the uniforms, the guns you wear… I don’t know. And he probably can’t tell us.”

Given what Bernie might have seen, I wasn’t willing to write him off so quickly. And with as many cases as we were handling, I also didn’t want to miss the opportunity to wrap up at least one of them.

“Could be we just need to find the right way to ask him.”