The Surrogate Thief

Chapter 23

I finally met Tom Bander," Joe told Gail.

They were sitting opposite each other at the tiny counter that separated Joe's kitchen from the living room, the remains of a meal between them. Acquiescing to the rigors of the campaign and her own lack of time, Gail had let Joe cook dinner. He'd catered to her strict vegetarian habits by making an iceberg salad and glow-in-the-dark macaroni and cheese out of a box, and, much as she hated to admit it, it had been one of the best meals she'd enjoyed in months.

"I went to his house a few days ago," Joe continued, getting up to put the water on for some coffee. "First time I'd ever set eyes on him."

Gail thought she knew what was going on, or hoped she did.

"How was he?"

"Small, quiet. Not a guy to fill a room by just entering it. Not like his lawyer. With all that power and money, the ability to order people killed, he was a nobody."

"Why were you there?"

"To get a DNA sample," he said lightly, lining up the mugs and rooting through the fridge for milk.

She turned that over in her mind, trying to imagine the scene. "Must've been tough, finally meeting him after all this time."

Joe returned to his seat and took her hand in his. "I lost it. I pushed him into a chair, yelled at the lawyer, dented the hood of my car afterward with my fist. I may have put Sammie into therapy."

Gail rubbed his knuckles with her fingertips, in fact happy to hear he'd blown up. "She sleeps with Willy, for God's sake. She's got the hide of a rhino."

He smiled weakly. "Still, I remember seeing my father explode like that when his tractor broke down once, when I was a kid. Scared the hell out of me. I didn't want to talk to him for weeks afterward."

Gail raised her eyebrows. "And Sam's been running away every time she sees you?"

He granted her point. "No. I think I knew at the time it wasn't the tractor he was mad at-maybe that's what scared me. I didn't know what the real reasons were. I just suspected they were there."

"You ever find out?"

"Good Lord, no. My old man was like a sealed chest on those kinds of things. You didn't share your feelings with your kids-or anyone else, for that matter. Jesus, that would've really put me into shock."

"But you know what set you off at Bander's," she suggested.

He took his hand back and propped his chin up with it. "Maybe. I'm not so sure. I was there getting the evidence I'm hoping will put him in jail. Should've been a time to rejoice. Instead, I just felt incredibly pissed off at everything he's caused."

Gail pushed for more. "What has he caused, exactly? You've dealt with murderers before. Some of them have put you through the wringer a lot worse than this guy, it seems."

He looked at her, surprise on his face. "Partly, I think that's what got to me-no bluster, no acting out, no nothing. But now I think the bigger part was remembering Katie Clark, sitting in her chair, about as alone and defenseless as you can get. Why kill her? Or Shea or Hannah Shriver, for that matter. It was all so gratuitous. So totally self-serving."

"But not unique," she pushed.

To his credit, he didn't reject this outright. He took it in, turned it around, and finally said, "Maybe, for me, this once it was."

"Because of how it started?"

He nodded. "Maria Oberfeldt. We got to calling her the bat from hell, the way she went after us, day after day, week after week. At first it was a pain-we were doing what we could. We didn't have the resources to do much beyond catch people who were still standing over their victims. When we got the evidence implicating Pete Shea, I thought we'd gotten lucky. But then we never found him. As time went on, I kept dreaming about how I'd be able to put her mind at ease someday, so that she could just sit by her husband's side and pay attention to his dying."

"Like you were doing with Ellen?" Gail asked.

He stopped halfway to the stove, where the kettle was beginning to whistle. His face averted, he ran his hand through his hair before turning off the flame. He stood, staring at the steam pumping out of the spout like a miniature chimney fire. A man lost in a dream.

In the silence, Gail heard a truck rumble by the front of the house.

Finally, he picked up the kettle and poured hot water into both mugs. Instant coffee, naturally.

"I didn't do much for Ellen," he said at last, addressing the mugs. "I wasn't able to do much for anyone, as it turned out."

He spooned in the coffee, added milk and sugar to his, and brought them over to the counter.

"Did I ever tell you what happened to Maria Oberfeldt?" he asked.

"You've never told me much about any of this."

"She left town right after her husband died, which he did when she was at the police station, bugging us yet again. She returned to the hospital, was told that he'd passed, and she left, almost the next day."

He sat down and cradled the mug between his hands. "Two weeks later, she committed suicide. Seventy-four. They'd been married fifty-five years."

He let out a sigh, and she noticed that his eyes were glistening. "We'd both been widowed, almost on the same day. When I heard she'd died so soon after, it felt like being hit all over again."

He paused and took a deep breath. "That day, I told myself I'd never get that close to anyone ever again."

"You're talking about Ellen."

"Yeah."

He pressed his fingertips against his eyes. "The T. J. Ralphers of the world-or whatever they're called-have no clue how far out the ripples go. Maybe it was his total lack of character that made me blow up. Damned if I know."

Gail waited for him to take his time. She thought of how little she'd understood of all this-not just recently, while she'd been distracted by her political ambitions, but during their whole time together, stretching back years. She'd heard some of it, certainly the broad outline, but without the attention it clearly deserved. Now she felt oddly unbalanced, torn between yielding to her own sentimentality, and the knowledge that what he'd revealed was a statement of fact. He would never get as close to anyone as he'd been to Ellen ever again-and despite the love that he and Gail had nurtured and nursed through the years, that included her.

She had fussed around identifying her own reasons for not committing conventionally to this union, through marriage or at least cohabitation. She'd looked at her upbringing, her own parents' struggles, the rape that had changed her life. But she'd rarely paused to look at him. To some degree, Joe Gunther had just been that lucky catch, the guy who would put up with her eccentricities.

Now, feeling a bit naive, she saw him in more depth-and while she was grateful for his devotion to her, this conversation had left her shaken.

She reached out, took his hand, and kissed it.

Kathy Bartlett's plan not to arrest Tom Bander prematurely was working well. While Walter Masius kept holding press conferences to decry the abuses being heaped on his client-little unconfirmed snippets of which, Joe was pretty certain, Bartlett was making sure got leaked-Bander himself had all but made a prison out of his sumptuous home. In the meantime, Greenberg was still talking, his three colleagues from the Tunbridge Fair had been rounded up and were adding their songs to his, and the Massachusetts State Police were updating their case daily with new and damning evidence linking Greenberg to the death of Pete Shea.

The only problem with all this momentum was that nothing, aside from Greenberg's word, linked Bander with what Greenberg claimed he'd done on Bander's orders. Greenberg's henchmen had been hired by him, not Bander, and no notes, e-mails, letters, outside witnesses, or phone records could be found tying Bander to Shriver or Shea or to the events leading up to their deaths.

Bartlett's case so far was entirely circumstantial.

Even the DNA Sammie Martens had collected hadn't proved as damning as everyone had hoped it would. Upon hearing that the swab was a perfect match for the drops found in the Oberfeldt store, Masius immediately announced that his client had cut himself upon entering the place earlier that day. According to the lawyer, Oberfeldt himself had even helped T. J. Ralpher to bandage his wound, since he'd felt guilty that a nail protruding from the counter had been to blame for the injury. Masius had almost made it sound as if the two men were friends.

Bartlett brushed the denial aside, but Joe could read between the lines. If this case went to trial, who was to say the jury would be any less swayed by that argument than some people he'd overheard discussing it in the street? Tellingly, one of them had even mentioned the phrase, "the benefit of the doubt."

Which is what made finally getting a phone call from Penny Anderson of the Court Reporters Association such a relief.

"You have any luck?" Joe asked her after a perfunctory exchange of greetings.

"It was harder than I thought," she conceded. "It's a little like deciphering someone else's really bad handwriting."

"But you did get it?"

"Oh, I got it," she said cheerfully. "And I also understand why she wasn't on the job for long, too. She was pretty bad."

Gunther glanced out the window, repressing the urge to yell at the woman to tell him what he wanted to know.

"Anyhow," Penny continued, "you were absolutely right about there being a missing piece, and it was exactly where you said it would be. Guess that's why you're the detective, right?"

"Right."

Penny finally picked up that he wasn't in a chatty mood. "So, I'll fax you a copy of what I transcribed, but would you like a sneak preview now?"

"That would be great."

She laughed. "Thought I'd never ask, right?"

Joe made no response, but he reached out and extracted a copy of the transcribed deposition Hannah had given the lawyer, Mr. Jennings.

"Okay. Here goes. Ready?"

Joe sighed silently. "Yup." MR. JENNINGS: We need to know if anyone saw you doing that. Getting your mail. MR. CONANT: T. J. was there. Came in just as I opened the box. MR. JENNINGS: Does T. J. have a last name? MR. CONANT: Sure. Everybody does. MR. JENNINGS: And what is T. J.'s last name? MR. CONANT: Ralpher. T. J. Ralpher. I have no clue what the T. J.'s for, so don't bother askin'. But he was a mess that night, so he'd sure as hell remember seein' me. He had a nosebleed to beat all. There was blood all over his shirt.

Joe interrupted her. "You're absolutely sure that's what it says?

"Oh, yes," was the response. "I know you wanted this done right, so I had one of my colleagues check it as well, to make double sure." She hesitated a moment and then asked, "Was that all right? I didn't think to ask."

Joe smiled. "That was perfect. Keep going." In the document before him, all mention of a bloody nose was missing, which is what made Conant's comment about not talking less odd than it had first appeared. Clearly, what he'd meant was that there had been no detailed discussion. MR. JENNINGS: Did you and T. J. talk? MR. CONANT: Nope. We're not like friends. He said hi, I said hi. We live in the same building. That's about it. All he said was that I should see the other guy. But he could vouch for me. I don't know shit about Mitch and that cow he calls a wife…

"That's good," Joe interrupted. "I got the rest in front of me. He doesn't mention Ralpher again, does he?"

"No. That's it."

"Penny, you're a peach. Next time I'm in Burlington, dinner's on me-your choice of restaurants."

"I don't know what my husband would say about that."

"He's invited, too. Fax me the whole thing, would you? And thanks again."

Lester Spinney was writing at his desk across from Joe, and looked up as Gunther replaced the phone's receiver. "Good news?"

"Not bad," Joe answered, dialing the phone. "David, it's Joe Gunther," he said. "You got a minute?"

David Hawke was the head of the state's crime lab, a man well used to cops calling him out of the blue and disrupting his day.

"Sure," he responded affably. "What's up?"

"Is there any way you can tell if a blood sample originated from a nosebleed?"

"Not from the makeup of the blood itself. Blood is blood, Joe. What're you talking about, specifically?"

"That three-decade-old stuff I've been bugging you about."

"Let me put you on hold so I can retrieve that file."

Joe stared into middle space as he waited. Spinney correctly interpreted the body language. "On hold?"

Gunther nodded.

"What're you after?"

"Remember that doctored deposition? I was just told that the missing section identifies Ralpher as having a nosebleed right after the Oberfeldt beating-and admitting that he got it in a fight."

"I thought Masius said the blood came from a cut hand."

"Exactly. If I can prove otherwise, it not only makes his client a liar but, if Hawke comes through, it'll strengthen my case."

"You still there?" David Hawke asked, back on again.

"Yeah. Go ahead."

"Well, I looked it over again. I don't have anything probative, but there are a couple of details supporting a nosebleed. The first is the blood pattern on the floor. It's consistent with having fallen from a height of about five feet. How tall is your suspect?"

"About five eight. You saying it couldn't have come from a cut hand?"

"A lawyer could argue that your guy left the place with his hand held high, but that would cause the blood to run down his arm. No one I know would walk around that way-they'd stick the hand down and to one side."

"Plus," Joe mentioned, "the lawyer in question is claiming the wound was bandaged before his client left."

"Oh, I doubt that," David said, his voice surprised. "The blood drops are very consistent with a free-flowing cut. And you have the trail he took, out the back door after loitering around the hiding place in the floor."

"They're claiming now he went out the back on the victim's insistence-the old man didn't want anyone scared by a bloody man coming out the front door."

Joe could almost hear Hawke shrugging at the other end of the phone line. "Well, I'll leave that to you. If asked, I'd have to say that whoever was dropping that blood clearly stopped at the hiding place, even if I couldn't swear he actually opened it up."

"Okay," Joe allowed. "What about the second detail you mentioned?"

"Again, nothing to really hang your hat on, but among the samples gathered, there were a couple of tiny hairs as well, consistent with having come from the nose."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning they're also consistent with being hair from any part of the body, more or less. Obviously, nose hairs are very small and short, and these two fit that bill perfectly, but I could never claim on the stand that that's where they came from-only that they could have."

Gunther nodded to no one in particular. "Okay. I got you. Still, that's good. I owe you one, David. Thanks."

He hung up, his expression thoughtful.

"Home run?" Lester asked.

Joe looked rueful. "Call it a solid single-another one." He sat back in his chair and put his feet up on his desk. "I just wish," he added, "that I could find some rock-solid piece of evidence that Bander couldn't dance away from." He reached out his hand and closed his fingers around thin air. "I am so close, I can almost grab it. I just can't see it yet."

Gail's run for the senate was hanging in limbo. More important to her personally, she was feeling in limbo. Sitting in her command center living room, surrounded by her front-rank lieutenants, she was having a hard time concentrating on what they were saying.

She had a headache and was still feeling woozy. In the last few days of the campaign, it was traditional, if a little dopey, for candidates to stand on the edge of Brattleboro's rush-hour traffic every night, waving and holding a banner with their name on it and, in her case, fighting the rising nausea from all the exhaust fumes. Supposedly, this ritual was so voters could catch a glimpse of the person behind the hype, but Gail was also suspicious that if she didn't do it, she'd be accused of being aloof and arrogant.

And she'd had enough of that. So far, she'd had her wealth, her birthplace, her lover, several of her past professions, and the fact that she'd been raped all used against her in one way or another, mostly to prove that she was a rich, uppity, moneygrubbing flatlander with no morals or scruples.

Not surprisingly, most of this had come from the near-anonymous "other side"-backers of the man she'd been told to refer to only as "my opponent" so as not to give him extra visibility. But she'd also been reading of her shortcomings in letters to the editor, hearing them on the street, and listening to them discussed on the radio and TV.

Gail had begun to wonder, as anyone might against such a barrage, whether there might not be some truth to all the rumors. After all, hadn't she been brought up on the principle that all politicians were only after power and money? What made that so different now that she was one herself? Hadn't she been doing the same things as her opponents throughout both the primary and the general election?

Her present nausea from all that carbon monoxide gave her the answer to that one.

And the fact that she'd left Joe to fend for himself in the midst of what was clearly a crisis. She was still ruing having asked him to lobby on her behalf with his law enforcement contacts, even though she'd just as quickly told him not to. Too little, too late.

And, at their very last conversation over dinner at his place, even while overtaken by appreciation for the man and what he stood for, she'd felt guilty and somehow inadequate. He'd revealed himself to be as unrecovered from his emotional wound as she would be forever from her rape. But instead of helping him, she had left him in the lurch, much as Ellen had so many years ago, for different reasons, obviously, but, coincidentally, while he was investigating the exact same crime.

She knew this was all essentially the raving of an exhausted, stressed-out, almost irrational punch-drunk fighter, but Gail was nevertheless beginning to wonder, just days away from the election, whether any of it was worth the cost.

"You want another aspirin, Gail? Or a soda?" Susan Raffner asked her, intruding on her daydream. "You're still not looking too good."

Gail shook her head. "I'm fine. It's passing. So, what's the consensus?"

"Honestly?" Susan answered for them all. "Not great. You've been doing the right things. You haven't been acting or looking too much like a candidate and nothing else, and your pedigree as a selectperson and a prosecutor has stood you in good stead. It's just-the stats still aren't there."

Janet Grasso, the team's number cruncher went further. "We're doing fine among the people who saw you through the primary, and what endorsements we've got so far have been great, but that's the bedrock we expected all along: the Reformer backing, Women for Women, Planned Parenthood, the unions. The tough parts have been the western towns and places like Vernon-which we didn't expect to carry-but Townshend, too, and Westminster and Dummerston. Those are where we should be doing a whole lot better. Part of it may be that you lost a little credibility when you shifted slightly to the right after the primary win, but that was a gamble we all agreed to-trying to steal a little of Parker's thunder."

"It may be the economy, too, at least partly," Susan added. "People are feeling hopeful enough, they don't want to listen to bad news."

"I haven't been telling them bad news," Gail protested.

Susan rubbed her forehead. "I keep telling you this. Democrats by their very nature are about bad news. We need to help the poor, the hungry, the disadvantaged, to use our wealth to help those in need. The Republicans just say, 'Fuck 'em; the economy will see 'em through.' Sad but true, that's what people like to hear when they finally feel they have some money in their pockets. They don't want to share. They want to buy stuff. Parker is cleaning up just singing his 'Happy Days Are Here Again' message."

"Not to mention all the national security hoopla," Nancy Amidon, Gail's treasurer, chimed in. "That adds to the fortress mentality."

Gail held up both her hands. "All right, all right. Basically, you're saying I'm out of luck. We did it by the numbers, and we're about to lose. Is that it?"

"Yeah," Susan said.

"No," came from both Janet and Nancy.

The three others in the room, silent so far, remained so, damning with no praise.

"Is it money?" Gail asked. "Can we flush in another few thousand in a last-second blitz?"

Nancy shrugged. "We know we've reached well over twenty-five thousand households. We've already spent eighteen thousand doing it. That's a lot. Probably more than Parker has, not that we ever want that to get out."

"Let's hear it for having the Reformer in our pocket," muttered Susan.

Nancy continued. "We do have more cash available. If you want to go ahead with that."

"Do it," Susan ordered, and then rose to her feet to pace around the room. "What I don't get," she burst out, "is why the hell this thing with Tom Bander hasn't even touched Parker. If they were any closer, they'd have to exchange vows, for Christ's sake. It pisses me off how every Republican can hang out with thieves and murderers, while Demo-crats get slammed for getting blow jobs."

Despite her fury, a quick ripple of smiles passed through the room. Susan on a rant was always good spectator sport, assuming you were out of range.

"Parker and Bander go back years," she continued. "Everyone knows that. They golf together; they've done deals together. How the hell can anyone think Parker didn't know his playmate was a crook?"

"Probably because he didn't," Gail explained gently. "How much do you know about your friends' backgrounds?"

Susan stopped in her tracks. "Shit. Have you been holding something back?"

Gail felt her headache bounding back, realizing her friend wasn't joking. "No," she said tiredly.

Susan resumed walking, totally focused once more. "Damn, this is frustrating. If I could take a bullet, I would, but, so far, it looks like we've been the only ones shooting-right at our feet."