The Price of Malice Read online

  Today was no different. Smelling the cut hay and fresh manure from a nearby farm, as the road headed into the Green Mountains, Joe pondered the balancing act between his professional and personal lives—as different as the contrast he’d been appreciating recently between Vermont and the Maine coast. Or, more relevantly, the tug of war he felt himself battling between addressing Lyn’s plight and tending to the Castine case.

  But there were also some overlays, and the more Joe drove, the more he began to recognize them. He had forever appreciated the often lethal quirkiness of human nature—its drive to reach beyond its grasp, to resort to baser instincts, to assume the worst. His entire professional life had been spent in responding to these traits, and there was no reason to believe he was seeing anything new right now. They were just hitting him from two directions at the same time.

  As a result of this insight, the longer he drove the less torn he became between either abandoning Lyn to her own devices or periodically leaving his team to fend for themselves. Instead, the two situations began to fuse into the practical concern to simply get both jobs done. There may be scheduling problems, and a few steamed-up people, but he slowly convinced himself that if he kept his own introspection at bay, and applied a little old-fashioned efficiency, he could still serve each taskmaster.

  That he might be deluding himself never occurred to him.

  In this artificially upbeat mood, he bypassed the Waterbury exit—and Bill Allard’s office—to proceed directly to Burlington and the so-called Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, or OCME. If Allard was miffed at being left in the dark, it wouldn’t hurt to meet him with the latest autopsy findings in hand.

  On the list of “largest cities” for each of the fifty states, Burlington has the unique distinction of being the smallest of the bunch. As if in compensation, however, it has drawn to its outskirts and environs almost a third of Vermont’s entire population. Joe therefore found himself easing away from his inner thoughts to pay closer attention to the thickening traffic.

  He took the downtown exit, toward the broad, sweeping hill and the huge lake beyond, but cut right at the top, into the embrace of the sprawling, perpetually under construction maze of the Fletcher Allen medical center. The OCME was located—like an oft overlooked family heirloom—in the nearly inaccessible nether reaches of this complex. Every time he visited, despite his numerous trips here, Joe managed to get lost while strolling the corridors, passages, and hallways that bound Fletcher Allen together.

  He was surprised, therefore, when he traveled from the garage through the labyrinth without a misstep, finding himself in short order not only standing before the properly labeled door, but just as it flew open to reveal a tall, slim, white-coated, slightly aristocratic blonde holding a file in her hand—the chief herself, Dr. Beverly Hillstrom.

  She burst out laughing at the sight of him. “My God. Joe. Where did you pop out of?”

  They embraced warmly, kissing on the cheek, two friends of such long standing that—just once—when each had coincidentally been in emotional turmoil, they’d even been lovers for a night.

  “I was curious about Wayne Castine—or at least that’s my excuse,” he said with a smile.

  She squeezed his arm. “You are a born romantic, even if I’m the only one who knows it.”

  In fact, that was truer for her, who addressed virtually everyone except Joe as “Mister,” “Ms.,” or their official title, to preserve propriety. If anyone had been told of what she and Joe shared, they never would have believed it, so convincing had Hillstrom been in creating her Ice Queen persona.

  “Walk with me,” she urged him. “I’m only going down the hall to deliver this”—she waved the file—“and that’s only because I wanted to stretch my legs. A day full of paperwork. Perfectly awful.”

  “How have you been otherwise?” he asked.

  “Oh, wonderful,” she admitted. “We’ve been getting out more. Bought a small sailboat that’s become a complete life saver. I sailed as a youngster, and forgot how much I liked it. Life is good. How’s Lyn?”

  Beverly was married, with children, all older now and out of the house. She and her husband had briefly gone separate ways—that’s when she and Joe had found mutual solace—so he was happy to hear that the suture was holding.

  “A little shaky, to be honest. Her mom is worse, so she’s in Gloucester right now, lending a hand.” He left it at that, although he would have felt free to share more under different circumstances.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. It is a curious cycle we humans travel, from cradle to grave. The whole parent/child connection has so many unexpected angles.”

  He smiled at the clinical language, typical of the woman, but it did bring him back briefly to his ruminations about both the Brattleboro homicide and Lyn’s wrestling with the state of her family.

  Hillstrom abruptly turned left, entered an empty office, and dropped the file into a slot cut into the far wall.

  “That’s it,” she announced, turning around and retracing their steps.

  “You did get the preliminary summary on Castine, correct?” she asked as they walked.

  “Oh, yeah. Many thanks.”

  “It’s funny,” she then said, touching his shoulder. “I actually expected you up here a few days ago, not that I would have had much to say.”

  “I know,” he agreed. “This thing with Lyn has me driving back and forth to Maine. It’s raising hell with my schedule. It wasn’t for lack of desire, though.”

  She was amused. “Now there’s a word. Actually, your timing is excellent, because just this morning, I got something extra from the lab. I think you’ll find it interesting.”

  They reached the OCME door, which she unlocked with a card key before leading the way through a couple of small offices and a short hallway to her personal inner sanctum. Joe exchanged greetings and at least one other fast hug with various staffers along the way. The medical examiner’s office, casually neglected and shortchanged by the powers above, had a familylike closeness about it which they liked to compare to survivor’s syndrome following a boat hijacking.

  Beverly settled behind her desk, as Joe selected a comfortable armchair, and perused a neat pile of files at her right hand.

  “Here we go,” she quickly announced. “Wayne Castine. Let’s see . . . Yes, this is it. David Hawke faxed me this today; you probably have a copy waiting for you at your office. His lab lifted a small sample of blood not belonging to the victim. Not a huge amount, but perhaps consistent with a cut hand or finger.”

  Joe sat forward, making a mental note to call Sammie once he was back in the car, to let her know they should start collecting either volunteered or discreetly gathered DNA samples from the people in Castine’s life.

  “Male or female?” he asked.

  “Male, and no, they didn’t get a hit when they ran it through what data they have available. That’s hardly surprising, though, given what you gave us.”

  Joe was caught off guard. “What’s that mean?”

  She reached out and dialed her phone, explaining. “I’ll let David tell you that.”

  Three minutes later, following the standard amenities, Hawke was addressing them both over the speakerphone.

  “The weather served you poorly, Joe,” he said. “It was a very hot day, my team had a long way to travel, and the scene was not air-conditioned. I don’t guess you had much of a choice, and I remember mentioning this at the time, but the body—and therefore any blood residue—just sat in the heat too long. Any and all samples degraded more than I thought they had. As you know, for an acceptable DNA match, the legal standard is ten loci, minimum. We were only able to extract six.”

  Joe was downcast. “Damn. We tried rigging a shade. I should’ve just hauled the body out of there and told you all to deal with it.”

  “It’s not all bad news,” Hawke said supportively. “Six loci are better than none. It’s still a one-in-millions statistic. If you can collect a match that comes
this close, chances are good you’ll have your man.”

  That was heartening. No homicide prosecution relied solely on DNA anyhow. What David had said was perfectly true.

  Still, Beverly saw Joe’s disappointment. “Tell you what,” she told them. “As a gesture of interagency cooperation, I’ll pick up the tab if you, David, send the sample out for a mini-STR analysis. If we’re lucky, that might expand the number of loci from six to nine. Still shy of the magic legal number, but nothing to sneeze at.”

  That did lighten the mood. “You’re a peach, Beverly,” Joe told her. “Thank you.”

  She eyed him severely. “Either one of you breathes a word of this, you’ll regret it.”

  “I promise, I promise,” Joe swore, holding up his right hand. “I take it this doesn’t happen overnight.”

  Hawke was still laughing. “I’ll do what I can, but yes, it takes about a week. Maybe less.”

  Joe bowed to the inevitable. “Just now, you said ‘man.’ Does that mean you think the killer was male?”

  They both stared at the phone as a pause betrayed Hawke’s embarrassment. “Slip of the tongue,” his voice admitted. “I have no official opinion on that. The one odd blood sample is male, though.”

  Beverly added, “From the angle of the various knife thrusts, I would say that the decedent and his attacker were within six inches of being the same height. Also, for what it’s worth, I have never seen such a killing that wasn’t associated with some level of mental instability, but that could stem as much from interpersonal rage as any generalized psychosis.”

  “Meaning Castine could just as easily have been knifed by a nutcase as someone he ticked off.”

  She smiled. “Someone he ticked off couldn’t also be a nutcase?”

  “Come on, Beverly.”

  She laughed. “Okay. Yes, you’re right. This does bring to mind the old crime novels and their favorite, ‘crime of passion,’ though.”

  “Nifty. We reached the same conclusion. You find anything else?”

  “Actually, I did,” she told him. “He’d had sex just prior to death.”

  That brought him up short. He thought back to the apartment, and the crime lab’s finding that Castine had been assaulted as he opened the door to let someone in.

  “I’ll be damned,” he murmured.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Bill Allard’s office was on the top floor of the Department of Public Safety, one flight above even the commissioner and the head of the state police.

  That having been said, it was a mouse hole, with a view of an opposite wall, in a building resembling the insane asylum many wags said it had once been—all brick and steel and concrete-hard linoleum. In fact, the main stairwell’s empty middle space—with its sheer drop to the ground floor—was caged off from the stairs themselves, presumably to discourage any suicidal yearnings. This did make the wags more difficult to dispute.

  Joe didn’t actually know the history of the building. The remnants of the euphemistically named State Hospital were just across the driveway, which operation had been thriving mere decades earlier, but that’s where his knowledge stopped.

  What he did know was that his behavior had turned up the temperature under his boss’s seat, which was already wedged between the VBI field force Allard tried to nurture and protect, and the bureaucrats and politicians who constantly pestered him about the expense and value of the new unit.

  “I’ve had a few balls in the air, Bill,” Joe explained disingenuously, after they’d exchanged greetings. “These cases don’t always come when you’re ready for them. But the squad’s on top of it, I’ve just compared notes with Hillstrom, and we’ve got a growing list of solid suspects.”

  “What did Hillstrom say?” Allard asked, his demeanor studiously neutral.

  Joe knew to expect that—the scientific stuff always got the attention. That’s why he’d started with Beverly before reporting here.

  “The lab lifted a foreign blood sample from the body. If we find someone to match it, that’ll be a big help. Who’s been leaning on you, Bill?”

  The question was a diversion. Allard was no different than everyone else, preferring his own woes over listening to the other guy’s.

  Allard rubbed his eyes. He was sitting behind his desk with his feet propped up. “Oh, God, name it and he, she, or it’s been pounding on my door. It’s not all bad, though—we get a case like yours—all gory and sensational—and it’s suddenly hand wringing from everybody, wondering what they can do to help. But I need something to tell them, Joe.”

  “Word on the street,” Joe told him, “is we shouldn’t even be running an investigation—it’s good riddance to bad rubbish.”

  “What do you think?”

  “My gut tells me we’ll be digging up some nasty stuff before we’re done, but that it’ll be restricted to a small circle. I’m seeing this as a revenge killing that’s over and done with, meaning you can tell the worriers that once we solve it, we’ll be set.”

  Allard nodded glumly. “But it’s too early to leak anything?”

  “Yeah, for the time being. Sorry.”

  He sighed. “All right. It’s better than nothing. But for Christ’s sake, keep in touch, okay? I want to pick up the phone and find you on the other end. We got cell phones, pagers, damn near wires in our heads. I’m just asking you to keep ’em turned on.”

  Joe rose and moved to the door, a whole two paces. “Got it, chief. I’ll make Kunkle my personal liaison to your office.”

  Allard rolled his eyes. “Get out of here.”

  But once he was headed unscathed down the hallway, Joe half regretted not having been entirely open with Bill, either about Lyn or the case. Both situations seemed so fluid as yet, like complex recipes only half worked out, so he was loath to overthink them. He already feared that he’d soon be facing a personal time management traffic jam; he didn’t want or need any additional complications, even from a friend and ally like Bill.

  Sam’s second visit to Karen Putnam’s trailer was less spontaneous, following hours of interviews, computer time, and phone calls to identify the backgrounds and habits of at least most members of the Putnam household.

  It wasn’t easy. Karen ran a loose operation, as her son had implied, to the point where Sam finally had to estimate that at least eight people called the trailer home, not six.

  They were: Karen, of course, and her four children—daughter, Becky Kerr, and sons, Richard Vial, Nicholas King, and Ryan Hatch. Followed by Karen’s husband, Todd Putnam; a girlfriend of Ryan’s named Maura Scully; and lastly, a man seemingly unrelated to any of them named Dan Kravitz.

  The common denominator, it turned out, and the way she’d figured this out, was that each of them appeared in the Spillman database, listing the trailer as a current home address.

  Lester actually discovered this in a moment of pure frustration, as he and Ron were helping Sam out. Ron had already lost time consulting tax rolls, welfare lists, voting records, Department of Corrections, and the like, gathering little, when Les simply typed in the trailer’s physical location and hit Search. The results stunned them all.

  Not that every family member had a criminal record. Spillman’s strength was that it gave room to almost everyone who’d caught the legal system’s eye. If a patrol officer pulled a car over and wrote up the driver for an offense, he was urged to enter the names, dates of birth, and addresses of everybody else aboard, as well. Spillman was an equal opportunity recorder.

  On the other hand, a good many of the Putnam clan had done more than simply ride in the wrong car, the worst of them being the nominal leader of the pack, Todd Putnam. He’d just been released from prison after being charged for assault and battery, destruction of private property, being drunk and disorderly, DUI, and resisting arrest—all from a single explosion at a local bar, albeit not the first. Thirty-six years old, Todd had spent half his life incarcerated for not controlling himself, and was, to Sam’s thinking, an outstanding exemplar of Kar
en’s poor taste in men.

  This research wasn’t just to identify who was who; it was also designed to get a handle on each person’s habits, or at least reveal where the adults worked. None of the investigators wanted to haul people into the municipal building for formal conversations at this early stage. The trick was to meet with each of them quietly, casually, and preferably privately. Knowing where they might be and when was helpful.

  That’s why Sam was pulling to a stop at the trailer when she was pretty sure Karen was alone—barring, of course, young Richard, of whose whereabouts she had no clue.

  The thought made her pause outside her car, crouch briefly beside the trailer, and gently tap against the crisscrossed slats skirting its foundation.

  “Richard?” she asked gently. “You there?”

  But there was no response.

  Karen’s worn-out minivan, however, was parked near the flimsy aluminum stairs leading up to the narrow front door. Sam took in a small breath, straightened her back slightly, and knocked.

  The response was less explosive than she’d anticipated. With the resignation of a true veteran, Karen Putnam opened the door, gave Sam a weary look, and said, “I figured you’d be back.”

  “I was wondering if we could talk.”

  Putnam stayed where she stood, her hand holding the spring-loaded door open. “Like I got a choice?”

  Sam took a chance. “Sure you do, Karen. This is a favor I’m asking. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry I upset you yesterday. Richard’s a nice kid; we just naturally started talking.”

  Karen made a sour face. “He’s okay. A little weird, if you ask me—living under the trailer.”

  Sam smiled. “He’s made it nice under there, though. Pretty cozy.”