Proof Positive: A Joe Gunther Novel (Joe Gunther Series) Read online

  “They were treated and released, one with a stiff neck, the other some bruised ribs. At least they weren’t shot at.”

  Allard remained unamused. “What about everything else? Where’s the entire Filson family?”

  “We don’t know yet.”

  “Concerned relatives haven’t started asking?” His tone was incredulous.

  “That is the relatives. Nancy’s a single child. They all originated from California a long time ago.”

  “I am seriously pissed off,” Bill warned him. “You know who I’m talking about: friends, neighbors, colleagues, whatever. People do not live in isolation anymore—especially normal-sounding people like these. What about Sandy Corcoran? She warned Nancy in the first place. What does she think of her friend suddenly disappearing?”

  “Lucky for us,” Joe told him, “Sandy told her to disappear. As far as she knows, Nancy took her advice.”

  “And Hillstrom’s daughter,” Allard continued. “Where’re you going to hide her? And for how long? Her generation no longer breathes without being told to by the Internet; you gonna tell me she hasn’t already tweeted her friends about this?”

  “Rachel’s not that kind of kid. She’s on board.”

  Bill rose from his desk and crossed to the window, where he looked out sightlessly, regaining his poise. Joe stayed quiet, waiting patiently.

  Calmer after a few moments, Allard turned and faced him. “All right, break it down for me, and stick mostly to the political and PR ramifications.”

  Fighting his own exhaustion, Joe thought a moment before responding, and began with: “From the top, Ben Kendall is looking like a natural death stimulated by the stress of an interrogation.”

  “Sounds like a murder to me.”

  “True. But the death certificate will read, ‘Undetermined.’ So, as a topic of media attention, he should slide under the radar.”

  “What about the other guy you found there?”

  “Tommy Bajek is being listed as a Philadelphia bad boy who got caught up in one of Ben’s booby traps. Accidental death.”

  “And he came all the way up to the house of a near recluse in Vermont to do this, why?”

  Joe shrugged. “They both hailed from Philly. Who knows? Criminals work in mysterious ways. Right now, we can stare any reporter right in the eye and honestly tell them we don’t know. Since Ben’s body was called in by the thief, why couldn’t that apply to Bajek? That tells the media nothing about what we might be suspecting.”

  Bill held up a hand to stop him. “Let’s stay on that for a moment. Why were you and Spinney down in Philadelphia? I’m talking cover story.”

  “Same as above,” Joe told him. “We were curious about Bajek. We were trying to be thorough, but we hit a brick wall. Chances are that Jennifer Sisto won’t even come up in any press conference.”

  Allard moved on without comment, despite a sour look. “Sandy Corcoran?” He was looking for ready responses here, Joe understood. Fortunately, they could both take comfort from Vermont’s media resembling the kinder, gentler journalism of the 1950s more than the current feeding grounds of New York or L.A. Nevertheless, this entire mess was becoming a potential news bonanza by anyone’s standard.

  “Corcoran’s agreed to keep quiet for Nancy’s sake,” Joe explained. “And as for Nancy and her folks, we’ve put the confidential word out and enlisted everyone from Fish and Wildlife to the state police to traffic enforcement to keep their eyes open for anything unusual. That’s probably the lid that’ll blow off first. You’re right there. Somebody’s gonna wonder where they went.”

  Allard returned to his desk and sat down heavily. “Who the hell are these guys, Joe? And what’re they after?”

  “I think they’re hired help, but hired to do what, I don’t know. The easy assumption is that it has something to do with what’s in those photographs, but we’ve looked at all of them—the old ones and the modern stuff—till we’re blue in the face, including the ones we got from Rachel’s dorm room. I have made an appointment with a contact who works at Norwich University and who served in Vietnam at the same time as Ben Kendall. But the wrinkle is that the war pictures at the museum number under half a dozen and don’t show anything particularly relevant. There are a couple or so shots showing U.S. troops, but they’re not really doing anything. Most of the exhibition consists of the close-ups of the hoard in Dummerston. That may be the key to what’s not making sense to us: The Vietnam angle is a pure distraction.”

  Bill stared at him incredulously. “People getting killed over snapshots of a scrap pile? I don’t think so.”

  Joe tilted his head. “We don’t know, Bill. And we have to leave that door open till we do. The war was a long time ago, and the people in those pictures are now easily in their sixties. Isn’t it likely that something in that supposed junk pile is worth killing for? Plus, the answer we’re after can’t be in what’s already hanging on the wall. That’s out in plain view. It must be among the shots that didn’t make it in, or in something that Rachel is forgetting she saw or knows.”

  Allard looked disgusted. “Whatever. What’s your plan?”

  “There are several. The first is to take each of Kendall’s pictures and analyze it down to the smallest detail—including the ones in the show and in Hillstrom’s archive, which we’ve moved to our office. The second is to squirrel away Rachel, and then set up a decoy to see if we can’t get these guys to stick their necks out to where we can grab ’em. The third involves the Filson family, of course. We’ll keep quietly beating the bushes for any sign of them. That’s where the biggest effort will go, and most of the manpower, but I want to keep my team focused on the first two.”

  Bill had been listening quietly, and now nodded thoughtfully, his earlier irritation replaced by some inner meditation.

  “What?” Joe inquired.

  “It’s like standing in a minefield during an earthquake, wondering which one’s going to go off first,” he said. “When it does—which you know it will—and we end up on the front page, it won’t take long for the rest to blow up like fireworks in a bonfire.”

  “We’ve been there before,” Joe commented.

  “And I hate it every time.”

  Joe stood up and looked down at his boss sympathetically. “It doesn’t have to happen that way. We might get lucky. We just need to tilt the table in our favor.”

  Bill leaned back and waved toward the door. “Then tilt away, Joe, and best of luck. Needless to say, you get anywhere, be sure to let me know. In the meantime, I’ll give you guys all the cover I can.”

  * * *

  “You know?” Frank began philosophically. “A guy could get to like a town like this.”

  He stood before the floor-to-ceiling window of the condo he’d leased overlooking Lake Champlain, enjoying the sight of a cutter slightly north of him, leaving its berth on its way to Port Kent, New York—barely visible on the distant shore. Leasing condos, even for brief periods, whenever they were staying in far-flung towns, had become a more private alternative to a motel room. And much more comfortable.

  “You sayin’ that ’cause the cops didn’t shoot back?” Neil replied. “Call me crazy, but I don’t think they like us here.” He was sitting in an armchair, facing the large-screen TV and a muted recording of a NASCAR race. “I don’t like them, either,” he finished, talking to himself.

  Frank looked back at him and smiled. “Hey, we’re making progress. Don’t get negative on me.”

  Neil’s mouth opened as he stared at him. “Making progress? Are you kidding me? They almost got us, Frank. I know you have all this weird shit goin’ on about fate and Zen and whatever the hell else, but I’m not nuts about cops breathin’ down my neck. This is not cool, and it sure as hell ain’t progress.”

  “I disagree,” Frank said conversationally, turning away from the view and taking the armchair beside Neil’s. “We know what they’re doing, and they think they know what we’re doing, which puts the advantage with us.”
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br />   “Right,” Neil agreed facetiously. “I totally get it. Not.”

  Frank was used to this. Neil’s role as a foil was one reason he enjoyed his company. It forced Frank to occasionally think out loud. “Let me lay it out this way,” he began. “You get two people sneaking around in a house with no lights, there’s a dumb-luck chance that one’ll find the other first. On the flip side, if one of them catches sight of the other and sneaks up behind him, then he can not only figure out what’s goin’ on, but he can either get the drop on the guy, or slip out a side door anytime he wants. That make it clearer?”

  Neil did make an attempt. “A little, ’cept we’re not sneaking around a house.”

  “No,” agreed Frank. “But we are trying to tag Rachel Reiling, thanks to the suddenly talkative Nancy Filson. The cops know that’s our goal, since they were heading for Rachel’s dorm room at the same time we were, complete with backup. By doing that, they showed us their hand.”

  Neil was again confused. “Showed their hand? We’re the bad guys, Frank. It’s their job to catch us. That’s no mystery.”

  “Yes,” Frank resumed patiently. “But how? Our all bumping into each other was just bad luck. They were actually there to either stake out the room, or take something out of it, like we wanted to before we were rudely interrupted. Either one tells me they have Rachel in protective custody.”

  “Okay,” Neil said slowly, still trying.

  “Well, if you were them, wouldn’t you take advantage of seeing the so-called bad guys’ cards and set up a decoy to lure them out? To use a different image, it’s like Rachel’s the cheese and we’re the rats and they’re gonna try to catch us by putting out a piece of cheese that looks just like her.”

  “You think they’ll dress up a cop for that?”

  Frank laughed. “I have no idea, but I’ll almost guarantee that we’ll somehow be allowed to hear about quote-unquote ‘Rachel’ being hidden by the cops in such-and-such a location, with them hoping we’ll take the bait.”

  “But we won’t, right?” Neil asked.

  “Right. We might tease ’em just for fun, but that depends on the setup.”

  Neil scratched his neck. “Okay, fine. I still don’t get why we care. If they’re gonna plan a trap and we’re not gonna bite, what do we gain?”

  “What we gain,” Frank told him, his eyes bright, “is that once they think the trap’s failed, they’ll retreat to consider what to do next. That’s when we’ll follow them—just as if we’d spotted them in the dark and snuck up behind them.”

  Neil looked at him, his expression cleared. “But they won’t know we’re right there, doggin’ their heels. That’s cool, Frank. You think we can maybe grab the real Rachel that way?”

  Frank sat back and crossed his legs contentedly. “I do.”

  * * *

  At that same moment, less than a mile away, Joe Gunther also stood at a window, enjoying a far more restricted view of Lake Champlain—in fact, barely a sliver between two of Burlington’s downtown buildings. Still, the allure of the water’s ever-changing leaden hues, along with its pure enormity, never failed to impress him.

  “Special Agent Gunther?”

  He turned at the voice—having been told of its owner’s arrival at the VBI office—and replied in a neutral tone, “Daniel Reiling?” He approached the man with his hand outstretched. “Glad to meet you.”

  Beverly Hillstrom’s ex-husband was dressed in an upscale lawyer’s three-piece, pin-striped version of a uniform, which to Joe seemed ostentatious for a place like Burlington. This was a town that—despite its major-city status—encouraged a more off-the-rack look. Of course, Joe had heard—including from sources other than the man’s disaffected ex-wife—that Reiling had the reputation of being a big fish in a small pond. He was very bright, very good at his job, and very successful at attending to the legal needs of Vermont’s movers and shakers. This was a man who consciously hobnobbed with the mighty, with no apologies, and had by now earned his place alongside them in both status and income. Gunther had honed a talent over the decades of keeping his body language and expressions neutral, but he was the first to admit that the entitled rich aggravated a prejudice that he’d never bothered explaining to himself.

  He was also ill inclined to like anyone who’d ever mistreated Beverly Hillstrom—as this man had by cheating on her before abandoning her and his two daughters.

  It actually embarrassed him to be thinking all this as he motioned Reiling to a chair, and made him more mindful to treat the man first and foremost as the father of a young woman in danger.

  “I am sorry to be meeting for the first time under these circumstances, Mr. Reiling,” Joe therefore began. “Your daughter has been extraordinarily helpful, and we are committed to her safety until we bring this case to a successful conclusion.”

  Reiling crossed his tailored legs, revealing expensive tasseled loafers, and gave Joe a frown. “Spare me, Special Agent Gunther. I hand out one-liners like that for a living. I want to know precisely what is going on.”

  Joe ignored the rudeness. “Feel free to call me Joe. We’ve placed Rachel into a protective setting, based on certain evidence that leads us to believe that she may be in jeopardy.”

  “As in someone taking a shot at you after rifling through her dorm room? I happen to know about that,” he said sarcastically, not returning the courtesy about how to address him. “You take a lot of believing if you’re calling that ‘certain evidence.’ In my language, that constitutes a lethal threat. What are you doing to safeguard my daughter?”

  Joe felt his face warm and hoped the reaction wasn’t apparent. “We’ve got her under wraps, Mr. Reiling, with her full understanding and cooperation. And while I know this may be awkward to hear, as part of that protection, we are not releasing the details of the arrangement, even to her parents.”

  Now it was the attorney’s turn to get hot under the collar. The elegant legs untangled as Reiling sat forward. “You can’t do that.”

  “Actually, we can. Your daughter’s becoming of age a few weeks ago legally makes her an adult. All we need is her blessing.”

  “This is bullshit. I bet you told Beverly. You people are always playing favorites in these things. I’ve seen it before.”

  Joe had calmed considerably, now that the man’s true measure had surfaced. He’d morphed quickly in Joe’s mind from being his lover’s ex-husband to just another pissed-off member of the public—a creature with which Joe was all too familiar.

  “I would recommend that you call your ex-wife,” he therefore counseled, “and discuss that with her. You’ll find her as ignorant as you, and by her own preference.”

  Reiling maintained what he hoped, no doubt, was an intimidating expression, but his accompanying silence revealed an underlying hesitance. Joe remained quiet to see what developed.

  Reiling took a breath, and his shoulders sagged slightly. “I’m being an asshole,” he said softly. “Sorry.”

  “You’re under stress,” Joe suggested, relieved. “I’d react poorly if my daughter were being targeted.”

  Now torn between gratitude and lingering suspicion, Reiling studied Joe before saying, “You’re being kind.”

  “Maybe,” Joe admitted. “Which doesn’t mean it’s not true. I will promise you,” he said with more meaning than he guessed Reiling knew, “that your daughter will receive the protection I’d give my own child. This is not routine to me. I can’t grant what you asked for just now, but I will give you that much.”

  The lawyer considered it briefly, as if he had options, before getting to his feet and shaking hands once more. “I’ll hold you to that.”

  The Willy Kunkle part of Joe’s brain was tempted to respond, Whatever, to match Reiling’s own tinny bravura, but instead he kept it to, “I expect nothing less,” and escorted him out of the office.

  He was still standing in the lobby, reviewing his impressions of the man who’d shared Beverly’s life for almost twenty years, when a soft
voice asked behind him, “My dad gone?”

  He turned to see Rachel standing with the inner door held open in her hand, the look on her face hovering between quizzical and vulnerable.

  He ushered her back into the office, surprised by the emotional lurch he felt in his chest at her appearance. “Yeah. Did you want to talk to him? I should’ve asked.”

  “I’m fine.”

  They walked over to a small side room where the squad kept the coffee machine, a microwave, and a fridge.

  Joe poured them both coffee. “You two get along?” he asked lightly, guiltily hoping for a negative response.

  “Okay,” she said. “We’re not buddy-buddy. Anne and I aren’t important enough.”

  Joe silently stirred in his usual startling amount of cream and sugar.

  “He was never around much,” she told him.

  Joe stated the obvious as they returned to the room where they were keeping her until they set up alternative quarters. “He was building a pretty big career.”

  “So was my mom,” she said simply.

  That was true. Beverly had turned the medical examiner’s office into an enviable institution—to the point where she and members of her small staff were often asked to share their methods and practices with other state OCMEs across the country.

  “She was home every night,” Rachel finished as they reached her door and entered. “Close enough, anyhow.”

  They sat opposite each other as they had hours earlier, when her mother had been with them.

  “Did the guys bring you everything you asked for from your dorm room?” Joe asked. “Clothes, books, iStuff?”

  She finished sipping her coffee. “Yes, thank you.”

  “We’ve almost set up where you’re going to be staying. We’re just putting the final touches on the security. I hope today hasn’t been too wearing.”

  She didn’t answer, and the makeshift bedroom became awkwardly quiet. Joe considered what to say next.

  “I know about you and my mom,” she said.

  He focused on her face. “I’m sorry?”

  She smiled, holding her mug in both hands. “It’s okay. I’m happy she’s found someone. So’s Anne. We talked about it.”