The Orphan's Guilt--A Joe Gunther Novel Read online

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As with all my books, I am in debt with this one. All along each story’s progress, I rely on others for their suggestions, guidance, criticisms, and judgment. In some cases, where the plot takes me to places I know little about, that number grows considerably. In others, such as The Orphan’s Guilt, I am writing closer to home experientially and so require fewer scouts if just as many proctors. I give thanks to them all.

  Dan Davis

  Ray Walker

  Steve Shapiro

  Margot Zalkind Mayor

  Elizabeth Mayor

  Castle Freeman, Jr.

  John Martin

  Allan Herzig

  PROLOGUE

  The Deathwatch Beetle

  “Perfect.”

  John Rust spotted the cruiser as he was leaving Putney, parked under a tree down a side street, almost completely shaded from the nearby street lamp. A shark lurking by a rock in gloomy waters.

  John had missed sideswiping a parked car moments earlier, overcorrected in response. As soon as he saw the cop, he knew what to expect.

  On cue, the inside of his vehicle began pulsing with blue lights from behind, making him feel trapped inside a hyperactive pinball machine. Additionally, all three of his rearview mirrors lit up from the cruiser’s takedown strobes, completely blinding him. It wasn’t the first time John had been subjected to this light show. Designed to protect the cop and intimidate the suspect, it had been well researched and tested. Resigned to his fate, he pulled over, feeling as deflated as he’d been contentedly anesthetized twenty seconds earlier. John didn’t even bother reaching for his paperwork in the glove compartment. He just sat motionless, his hands in his lap, numb once more.

  The sharp rap on his front passenger-side window still made him jump when it came, however, along with the fidgety darting about of a powerful flashlight beam—an intrusive, inquisitive Tinker Bell designed to strip him of his secrets.

  “Roll down the window, sir,” came the order.

  John did so, using the control button at his left hand. The cool night air felt good. It was early spring, which in Vermont could mean a serious careening of temperature shifts. But right now, depressed, at loose ends, and convincingly drunk, he wasn’t thinking about the weather.

  Nor was he thinking much about what was happening.

  He was wandering the corridors of his own recent past, suffering the loss that had encouraged him, yet again, to fall off the wagon.

  * * *

  The trooper, Tyler Brennan, six years on the job, had made his stop by the book. The Vermont State Police, and cops in general throughout this supposedly peaceful region, had come under increasing pressure to be more respectful, considerate, sensitive, and caring with their targeted population. At the same time, the very same people, to Tyler’s mind, had been ramping up their aggressiveness, use of weapons, and numbers of overdoses.

  These were complicated times, Tyler’s sergeant had told them at a recent briefing. “No shit,” had whispered a colleague, tapping the naloxone dispenser they now carried in their pockets, designed to reverse an opioid OD. And as for the days when a Vermont cop could almost depend on spending his career without pulling his gun on duty, those had been relegated to the past.

  So, yes, complicated times—with increasingly little room for error.

  Therefore the passenger-side approach. Tyler had taken the new caution to heart. Years ago, most officers pulling over a car walked up to the driver’s window and engaged in immediate conversation. Nowadays, they emulated what Tyler had just done. Each tended to circle the rear of their flashing cruiser—therefore not cutting in front of the blazing lights and outlining themselves—to unobtrusively peer through the suspect vehicle’s rear right window. This tactic afforded a number of advantages. It distracted the driver, who was squinting into the left outside mirror, expecting to see a shadow approach; it gave the cop a brief contemplation of the interior, including the driver’s often hidden right hand; and it supplied an element of surprise when the request to talk was finally issued. It also didn’t hurt that it lowered the chance of the officer’s being struck by a passing car.

  But in Tyler Brennan’s experience, it also had a final, paradoxical, effect. Because of its emphasis on lowering the threat threshold, the covert approach actually made Tyler more paranoid, as did an additional habit of placing his bare hand on the suspect’s car, in order to leave trace of his DNA and fingerprints behind, in case things went haywire.

  In all, by the time he’d knocked on John Rust’s right front window, he was ready to draw down on his suspect at the slightest provocation.

  But Rust barely moved. Quite the opposite of a trigger-happy possible killer, this guy appeared borderline catatonic.

  The revelation spurred Brennan to preface his usual spiel with a note of concern. “Sir, are you all right?”

  Rust had jumped in his seat upon the rapping of Tyler’s flashlight on the glass, but he now merely blinked, as if stirring from sleep. “Sure,” he said vaguely.

  “You don’t seem that way,” Brennan countered, adding, “and so you know, this conversation is being audio- and video-recorded. Have you been drinking alcohol tonight, sir?”

  Rust seemed to consider the question. The requirement to announce any bodycams or recorders was routinely done casually, so as not to draw attention to the fact.

  “Yup,” Rust said slowly, still not moving.

  “How much would you say you’ve consumed?”

  After a pause, the answer was, “The usual, I guess.”

  “Thank you,” the cop responded, genuinely grateful, hoping his camera was fully functioning. “Could I see your driver’s license, proof of insurance, and registration, please?”

  * * *

  John Rust liked the young cop’s face, even under the severe forward tilt of his imposing campaign hat—wide eyes, hint of a smile, an open expression. It almost compelled John to be honest, although he sighed inwardly when he heard himself admitting to being drunk. That wasn’t going to improve things any.

  He sat waiting in his car as the trooper retired to run his paperwork for priors, a process guaranteed to end poorly. John couldn’t even remember how many times he’d been pulled over.

  He wasn’t upset, however. He no longer felt any reason to be. His life, as he’d known it for forty years, had ended. Whatever happened now would be like cutting a kite loose of its tether—freeing it to float away.

  Or plummet.

  * * *

  The ensuing roadside minuet of nystagmus eye test, walk-and-turn and one-leg stand, and finally the forceful breath into the Alco-Sensor occurred sequentially, politely, almost courteously toward the end, as trooper and driver found their rhythm.

  Many such interactions are punctuated by anger, impatience, and, especially, sloppiness by the offender. But this one
was very different for both men. For a number of reasons—mood, time of night, overall state of being, or, more likely, the simple fact that these two just connected somehow—their ritual of command-and-obey, perform-and-observe, oddly suggestive of two tall, thin birds acting out a ceremonial, nature-driven encounter, became almost pleasant. This wasn’t hurt by the fact that Rust performed his dexterity tests quite well, a result usually restricted to either the sober or to seasoned alcoholics, whose tolerances could be alarmingly high. The Alco-Sensor reading had indicated that John was among the latter, but his demeanor throughout remained peaceful and courteous. By the time Tyler Brennan eased his now-handcuffed subject gently into his back seat for the trip to the barracks, a genuine if unacknowledged affection had bloomed between them.

  DUIs, DWIs, or sometimes deewees in the jargon, are lengthy affairs, quasi-liturgical in their formality. There are steps to be followed, protocols to enact, tests to endure, and forms to be completed. A decision tree algorithm dictates which path to engage, depending on the investigator’s discoveries and the arrestee’s cooperation and choices. The whole exercise can take hours and result in a trip to jail, or end at the barracks with a citation and the arranging of some form of transport back home.

  Phones, computers, and faxes are variously employed, necessitating a lot of sitting around, waiting. It was during this phase that Brennan entered the room Rust had been assigned, bearing two mugs of coffee. His compulsory guest was sitting with his head cocked, like a dog’s listening to some tiny siren call from afar.

  Tyler didn’t interrupt as he handed over one of the mugs and sat in the room’s remaining chair.

  “Hear that?” John asked him, a small smile on his otherwise permanently sad face.

  Tyler yielded to the building’s silence long enough to shake his head and admit, “No. What’m I listening for?”

  “That ticking.”

  Tyler now heard it. “Hot-water pipe,” he explained. “I got the same thing at home. When the nights are cold, it can get pretty loud. You must’ve heard that before, John.”

  Rust hadn’t been very talkative so far, responding to questions quietly and in a surprisingly soothing tone that Brennan had come to appreciate. Now, for the first time, he gazed at the trooper and spoke off topic.

  “Yes, I have, and of course you’re right. It’s just that I heard the same thing earlier today. It got me thinking.”

  “’Bout what?” Brennan asked, taking a sip of his coffee.

  “You ever hear of the deathwatch beetle?” John asked.

  “Deathwatch?” Tyler repeated. “Doesn’t sound good, whatever it is.”

  “It’s nothing nasty,” John assured him. “Ironic, maybe. It’s a wood-boring beetle, mostly in England, from what I’ve read. Kind of a termite, I suppose. It lives in the wood of really old houses, destroying the integrity of the beams from the inside. People don’t discover it until they notice a little wood dust here and there. Then, when they tap on the surface, it gives way to huge holes of underlying powder. It’s actually quite startling. Very destructive while being almost invisible. I’ve seen pictures of the damage. Impressive.”

  “Okay,” Tyler replied slowly, wondering what any beetle had to do with noisy pipes—and if Rust’s level of inebriation was maybe worse than he’d imagined. But he was amused by this almost abrupt evolution from virtual silence to random eloquence, and was happy to allow it some rein.

  John seemed to understand the cop’s inner debate and waved a hand reassuringly. “I know. I’m rambling. The deathwatch beetle blows its cover when it’s searching out company. It actually thumps its head repeatedly against the wood to attract a mate.”

  “No foolin’,” Tyler said, partly humoring him. “Must be huge.”

  “It’s not. Third of an inch or so. You can’t really hear it at all unless things are absolutely still. That’s how it got its name. Here’s the irony I mentioned: Back in the day, people held vigils for the dead and dying, all through the night. In the silence, they’d hear the beetles hard at work, calling out so they could create life. But the two phenomena got weirdly combined—death became associated with the tapping, to the point where people started saying the poor beetle was calling for death itself, counting down the seconds.”

  Brennan put down his coffee and stood up, headed for the fax machine in the other room to see if his paperwork had come through yet. “Well, take comfort, John.” He jerked a thumb overhead. “That is a hot-water pipe.”

  John smiled again. “Oh, I know. All this goes back to before indoor plumbing. But it does make you wonder—if nature sometimes knows more than we do.”

  That stopped Brennan at the door, caught up by the notion and recalling something else John had mentioned. “You said this was the second time you heard ticking today.”

  Rust looked caught out, and furrowed his brow, staring at the floor. “Did I?”

  “Yeah.” The young cop released the doorknob and watched the older man closely. “When was that?” he pursued.

  Rust spoke reluctantly. “I lost somebody today. That’s when I heard the tapping. It was more in context then.”

  “Somebody died?” Tyler asked. In his experience, people talk to excess, usually about themselves, and drunks can be especially talkative. Here he was learning that Rust had just suffered the death of someone close, and yet hadn’t said a word until now, and then virtually by accident.

  “My brother,” Rust said.

  Tyler sat back down, his elbows on his knees, leaning forward. “He was ill?”

  “It was expected. Still”—he looked up, his expression so troubled Tyler was quite moved, and added—“it came as a surprise. You know?”

  Brennan thought of his grandmother last year. A woman in her nineties, whose death had nevertheless left them bereft and longing. “I think I do. I’m sorry, John.”

  Tyler got up to leave again, but this time, in violation of one of his own practices, he touched Rust in passing, gently pressing his shoulder.

  That gesture notwithstanding, Brennan was in no way deflected from his course of action. Another revelation over the past few hours had been that John Rust, as mellow and soft-spoken as he presented, was nevertheless a committed and unrepentant alcoholic. More to the point, this was his fourth DUI recently where he’d registered a BAC of over 0.16—twice the allowable limit.

  It wouldn’t be the first time Tyler had enjoyed the company of someone his charges put behind bars. It was one of the peculiarities of the profession that bonds often formed between cop and crook, considering all the time they spent in each other’s company.

  Jail wasn’t going to be a feature tonight, though. Rust was going to be cited and released on his own recognizance. He’d been cooperative, pleasant, and coherent. His car had been impounded and he’d be taken home in a cab. Additionally, he’d just suffered a personal loss, and, if standards were followed, he’d be losing his privilege to drive in a few days anyhow, this being his fourth offense. Tyler saw no risk to public safety in letting the poor guy go.

  Not immediately, however. As Brennan entered the dispatcher’s office, she informed him that a domestic dispute involving a knife had just been reported a few miles away, and all hands were being requested. Rather than wrapping up with Rust—collecting his fingerprints and mug shots before release—Brennan would have to detain him at the barracks for a few more hours, under the dispatcher’s watchful eye via camera, until this new emergency had been addressed.

  It was a routine-enough occurrence, and one that Tyler doubted his new acquaintance would mind.

  Indeed, John Rust used the extra time to slowly grasp his new reality, emerging from the trancelike state Brennan had found him in to something like an epiphanic awakening. Whether it was the alcohol’s release of his brain or simply his meditation on the deathwatch beetle, John had glimpsed a possible new direction for his life that he hadn’t considered previously.

  Following Pete’s inevitable if slow-coming death, John had fall
en upon habit, and emptied a bottle. But was that what he wanted, acting as he had before, even without Pete at the center of things?

  In the countdown that measures one’s time alive, that suddenly seemed to John—surrounded as he was by the stark reality of a police station—a poor destiny to embrace.

  Especially if the same long-expected death could serve as a springboard for something more rewarding.

  * * *

  By the time Tyler Brennan returned four hours later to complete the booking procedure, he found Rust clear-eyed, engaged, and confident in his movements—the picture of a man with a mission in mind.

  Tyler could only wish him well.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Searching Out the Weak Spot

  Sally Kravitz liked Scott Jezek. A runner, a reader, a family man, he was the kind of lawyer who made lawyer jokes ring hollow. He was a small-time operator, owner of a one-man practice in Brattleboro, Vermont, a town that, since the 1970s, had earned an eccentric, politicized, left-wing reputation that allowed unusual types like Jezek to fit right in.

  His most winning feature for Sally was his soft spot for the underdog. Having cut his legal teeth for two decades in Boston, Jezek had amassed a small fortune and was yearning for a simpler life, if still within the practice of law. He’d chosen Brattleboro for this, and opened what he referred to as a “boutique firm,” where he could pick and choose his clients based on whether he believed in their cause over their ability to pay, often charging just enough to settle his bills and, for the most part, rejecting the very people who could easily afford his high-octane background and credentials.

  This made Sally and Scott kindred spirits, since, though wildly different in nature, their backgrounds had sculpted in each a sympathy for the downtrodden. A homegrown Brattleboro girl, Sally had been reared by a father devoted to experiencing and learning from the hardscrabble lives of society’s lower rungs. He had moved her around the town like a nomad for years, camping out in other people’s apartments and trailers and homes, exchanging labor and gifts for shelter, while absorbing a culture from which most middle-class residents only dreamed of escaping.