Trace Read online

  Although not married, Willy Kunkle and Samantha Martens shared a child, Emma; a house, once Willy’s own; and a propensity for exchanging mostly friendly, if often barbed, one-liners. They’d been fellow detectives downstairs, before VBI was created, and had forged a Mutt-and-Jeff image of contrasting styles that had therefore left most onlookers stunned by their romantic coupling.

  “Nah. That’s okay,” Willy muttered, still pretending to forage around in his desk.

  Lester stayed silent. Like so many others, he often took Willy’s hard, abrasive outer shell for granted, forgetting the man’s baggage of combat-born PTSD, past alcoholism, and instinctive paranoia—not to mention a crippled left arm, the result of a bullet he’d received on the job years earlier. An intuitive, natural-born cop, Willy could be judgmental, dismissive, and unmannered at one moment, while being thoughtful, sensitive, and generous at the next.

  God only knew what Lester had poked with his playful announcement, if anything, but he wasn’t about to worsen the situation by saying more.

  Fortunately, he didn’t have to. The door to the office opened to reveal Sammie Martens, fresh from having dropped Emma off at preschool.

  “Hey,” she said, taking them both in warily.

  “Hey, yourself,” Willy answered neutrally. “Long time, no see.”

  She didn’t respond right away, instead registering Lester’s embarrassment before saying, “You heard.”

  “I did.”

  She held up her iPhone. “Just got it when I was delivering Emma. Kind of a kick in the butt.”

  “Woulda been nice if he’d told us face-to-face,” Lester said, moving to safer ground.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Willy announced. “It was a family crisis. You do what you gotta do.” He looked at Sammie directly. “You’ll be great. It’s not like you don’t act like the boss half the time anyhow.”

  Lester laughed, he hoped supportively, but it only caused Willy to darken slightly and reach into his pocket, saying, “I gotta get this.”

  He pulled two stacked cell phones out of his pocket, one of which he deftly tucked away again before lifting the other to his ear and heading back out to the corridor for privacy.

  Sammie gazed down at Spinney and shook her head. “That went well,” she said.

  * * *

  “The Frank?” Beverly Hillstrom responded. “Absolutely. Best place for her. I wouldn’t have thought of it. Will they take her? I imagine there’s a waiting line.”

  Joe Gunther hadn’t doubted Dr. Lacombe’s recommendation of where to send his mother, but it was nice to get a second opinion from the state’s long-standing medical examiner and Joe’s romantic partner for the last couple of years. His natural prejudice aside, he’d never met a more motivated, learned, and dogged MD in his life. Beverly was the first person he’d called after leaving his mother’s side, following a very long night preparing for the transfer from Dartmouth-Hitchcock to the Frank—and informing his squad, via email, and his boss, VBI director Bill Allard.

  As straightforward as it appeared, that seemingly mundane process, even with Leo in tow, had been tougher than Joe anticipated. Their mother was admittedly old, restricted to a wheelchair, and although quicker-witted than many twenty-year-olds, not slated biologically to be around for much longer. He knew that. Nevertheless, seeing her in that bed—guarded by monitors and IV drips, her face haggard, her eyes wandering like a cornered animal’s, and babbling nonsensically—had thrown him badly.

  Joe had been the one to leave the family farm after his father’s death, enrolling in the military and fighting overseas. Even though he’d returned to Vermont, it hadn’t been to his birthplace. Leo was the local—never married, no wanderlust, content to envision dying where he’d been born. His contentedness had allowed Joe to slip free without guilt, even after their mother was confined to the wheelchair. The three of them had developed an unusual emotional dance step through the years, with Leo traveling the inner orbit, Joe the outer, and their mother holding the center.

  That was what had rattled Joe the most. His mother, self-reliant, alert, perpetually engaged, and always available, had served both her sons more as a force of nature than as a parental guide. She set the tone by example, and instructed by inference. To see her so at sea bypassed a defense mechanism on which he’d relied for his entire professional life, and left him at an emotional loss.

  Joe addressed Beverly’s inquiry. “I don’t know the details, but her doc must’ve pulled some strings. It was like the waving of a wand.”

  “Does that mean you’ll be leaving soon?”

  It was asked pragmatically. Beverly had a reputation for keeping cool in a crisis. But he knew her better than most now. He heard the sadness in her voice like the far-off fluttering from a hummingbird’s wings—so faint as to avoid notice—and he loved her for it.

  “Tomorrow. Even Dr. Lacombe was impressed. I don’t understand much about encephalitis, but I guess there’re enough interesting things going on with her that she’s being looked at as a prime candidate for treatment.” He paused before adding, sincerely, “I do wish I could come up to see you before, though. There’s just too much to do.”

  The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, or the OCME, as everyone called it who knew to call it anything, was located in the depths of Vermont’s largest hospital, in Burlington, a good two-and-a-half-hour drive from Joe’s home in Brattleboro. His and Beverly’s long-distance romance hadn’t suffered much yet, as they were both workaholic loners by instinct, but this was a clear exception.

  “I wish you could, too,” she answered honestly.

  The longing in her voice—this time clear and unfiltered—was sweet and surprising, and touched him deeply. He faltered before trying to respond. “I know—”

  “So do I, Joe,” she cut him off, sounding more her old self. “This needs to be done. You and I have all the time in the world.”

  * * *

  “Willy, it’s Colin Guyette, in Windsor.”

  Kunkle walked to the end of the municipal center’s broad hallway to stand at the window overlooking the rear parking lot. “Okay,” he said. Guyette was one of dozens of cops across the state whom he’d cultivated over the years. Not at any of the usual trainings, meetings, or especially shared family outings, however. Willy disliked his fellow humans broadly enough to consider such interactions with barely suppressed horror, as Sammie knew well. Nevertheless, he got around a lot, traveling far and wide, and always made himself known to the locals, however quietly. The arm helped, and the reputation. There weren’t many crippled cops who’d been military snipers, complete with impressive kill lists, who not only were still employed—thanks to the Americans with Disabilities Act—but also maintained the “up yours” attitude that so many people in uniform aspired to.

  Kunkle was the much-envied mascot of institutional dysfunction.

  He also made sure he was a good man to know. He helped his colleagues, showing little prejudice or preference, often by doing things they didn’t dare try themselves. As a result, along with spreading his bad boy aura, he’d subversively made himself useful, with never a claim for credit.

  “I got handed something I can’t do anything with,” Guyette explained. “But it’s offbeat enough, I thought you might be interested.”

  “Okay,” Willy repeated.

  “A little kid just gave me some broken teeth. Said she found them on the railroad tracks near the old Goodyear plant. I figured it was a couple of guys from the hood punching it out as usual, but I had some time on my hands and I wanted the kid to feel good about bringing it in, so I drove out to take a look, just for the hell of it, you know?”

  “Yup.”

  Most people knew Willy for his terseness—indeed, preferred it to his often caustic one-liners—so Guyette spoke on. “Well, I found something else, right where the teeth were, according to the kid. Don’t know what it is, but it was burned up pretty bad, and it looks electronic, and kind of important, if that doesn’t sound
stupid.”

  “That it?”

  “Yeah. Sorry. It’s not like anything I ever seen before. I coulda chucked it and not bothered you, but I figured, what the hell? If you ain’t interested, I’ll let it go. It’s probably nothing—a piece of trash not even connected to the teeth, but—”

  Willy cut him off, not wanting to hear more or—worse—hear it all over again. It’s what geezers like Guyette did. “I’m coming up. You around?”

  “Till seventeen hundred hours.”

  “Don’t get killed in the meantime.”

  * * *

  Jayla Robinson adjusted Jared’s oversized sunglasses for the twelfth time and joined the row of people shuffling down the center aisle to leave the bus. It had been a long and sleepless trip. Instead of feeling the relief she’d hoped for, an angry string of texts on her smartphone had reminded her of her tormentor’s ongoing proximity—“You’ll pay, you bitch.” “Watch your back, whore.” “Where’re my fucking glasses?” “You have no idea how bad you’re about to feel.”

  And so on. The glasses reference was a little nuts, but the rest of it only confirmed what had made her run, and rewarded her wisdom in escaping to parts unknown. She’d fallen in with a very bad man. Everyone she’d left behind, it seemed, was about to find that out, too, but at least none of them could be found accountable for giving her shelter.

  She looked at her phone as she progressed toward the door, deleting all his texts and wondering if she should nevertheless warn her parents. What would she say, though, that wouldn’t expose them to possible harm? And they wouldn’t have the sense to run. They’d go the conventional route, calling the police or something, which would really get Jared wound up. Best they know nothing; that he’d accept.

  She reached the sidewalk, emerged into the early-morning sun, and looked around. The bus had let them off in the heart of the University of Vermont, near the Davis Center, at the top of the long bluff that marks the last small upheaval of the Green Mountain range, before it falls—straight, flat, and steep—into the enormous, perpetually cold embrace of Lake Champlain below, with most of the city clinging to its slope.

  The street was a busy east–west corridor, connecting downtown to the interstate and thus slicing between the dorms to the south and UVM’s central campus opposite. The college was no SUNY Albany, with whose enormity Jayla was very familiar, but it did feature some twelve thousand students of all stripes, most of whom, it seemed, were swarming around the bus like army ants circling a boulder.

  They were used to navigating this potentially lethal intersection of pedestrians and vehicles, of course, while Jayla was not. As urbane as she was, and as used to a big town’s circulatory system, that didn’t exclude a newcomer’s learning curve. So it was that, in a moment’s inattention, she stepped out into the street and was hit by a car.

  It was actually more of a nudge. She didn’t even fall. But she was jarred enough to drop her bag onto the car’s hood, cause a few people to react, and make the driver slam on her brakes.

  “Oh, my God,” the young woman yelled, leaping out so fast that Jayla worried the car might keep rolling. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you.”

  “Were you hit?” a man asked from beside her.

  Jayla had already retrieved her bag and was shaking her head, looking for a gap in the renewed press of humanity around them. “I’m fine,” she muttered, dreading what attention might come her way next.

  The driver put both her hands on her shoulders, looking her straight in the eyes. “That’s probably the adrenaline and the endorphins. They’ll mask any initial pain. Do you feel anything going on with your neck? Whiplash, maybe? How ’bout your pelvis?”

  Jayla stared at her, thrown by the questions and her general demeanor—sure and matter-of-fact—despite having just run into someone. Jayla envied her poise, since she just wanted to run.

  “No, no. I’m fine,” she stammered. “Really. Are you a doctor?”

  The driver laughed, obviously relieved by Jayla’s apparent good health. “God, no. My mom is. Not that you’d want to end up in her waiting room.” She looked around quickly before suggesting, “Get in the car. I have to get out of traffic anyway. Then we can really find out how you’re doing. I’m not letting you go till we do.”

  “Why wouldn’t I want to meet your mother?” Jayla asked, letting herself be steered toward the car’s passenger door.

  “She’s the state medical examiner.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Joe stopped at the office door and watched unobserved for a moment as Lester and Sam sat at their desks, exchanging comments while poring over open file folders and computer screens. Popular fiction aside, most police work amounted to research and a hunt for continuity. How was the crime committed? Who was involved, directly or peripherally? What actions, items, and/or processes were needed for its completion? Times, people, movements, alibis—all of them called for scrutiny and linkage, and most of them were applied in the office, via phone, fax, computer, and interoffice dialogue.

  As Joe was about to take leave of this comforting cocoon, he let a moment’s nostalgia tug at him. A widower in his twenties, childless and a bachelor ever since, although involved in three serious romantic relationships along the way, Joe had spent the decades thereafter reading history books, practicing a little woodworking, and doing this job. Even he had to admit that he’d led a limited social life.

  But he in no way begrudged his choices. His experiences had been rich, and life’s evolutionary surprises, like discovering Beverly in a new context, had usually come at just the right time—the mishap involving his mother notwithstanding.

  That was one reason why he had joined the VBI, and so appreciated his colleagues within it. Each of them, their eccentricities aside, had made the sacrifices and commitments this level of performance required. It was the apex that every career deserved after untold years of effort, and which he’d been fortunate enough to find.

  Sam was the first to look up and end his contemplative moment. “Hey, boss,” she said, rising to welcome him. “How’re you holding up?”

  Lester stood also and shook his hand. “I was really sorry to hear about Mrs. Gunther.”

  Joe placed the animal carrier he was holding on the the floor and thanked them both, answering, “I’m the one who’s sorry to leave you holding the bag. There’s just nobody—”

  “Save it,” Sam interrupted, dropping to the floor to peer through the wire door of the carrier. “Hey, Gilbert … Oh, that’s right, you’re leaving today.” She looked up at her boss. “You want me to take care of the cat?”

  “I think Gilbert’s spoken for,” Joe answered, indicating Lester. “And you’re right. I’m about to head north to pick up our patient.”

  The tall detective grabbed the carrier and placed it by his desk. “Yup. The kids’re psyched. He’ll be in good hands. You got a place to stay once you get out West?” he then asked.

  “Free housing for the first month,” Joe told them both. “It’s a dorm or something. Apparently, family members are a part of rehab, so I guess I’ll be put to work. I hope so, to be honest. I might go crazy if I have to sit around too much.”

  “Not to worry,” Sam reassured him. “I’m freaked out enough about running things that I’ll be calling you five times a day.”

  Joe waved that away. “Walk in the park. You’re a natural for this. You all are.”

  Lester laughed outright. “All of us?”

  Joe joined him ruefully. “Okay. Some more diplomatically than others. Where is he, anyhow?”

  “Oh, you know,” Sam said. “He took a call and vanished, as usual. Not a word said. He’ll resurface. I’ll tell him you said hi.”

  “Did anything come in overnight?” Joe asked.

  “It didn’t, and you don’t need to know anyhow,” Sam told him sternly. “Go take care of your mom. I was kidding when I said I’d be bugging you, okay? We’ll be fine.”

  “You’ll be gone for three da
ys, max,” Les said supportively, “and we won’t even get a jaywalking case.”

  The other two looked at him silently before Joe voiced the obvious rejoinder, “Now you done it. You’re gonna get buried.”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, after Joe had departed, Lester Spinney asked Sammie, as he was scanning through his emails, “Are you really nervous?”

  “I just don’t want to fuck up,” she answered truthfully. “What if we do get buried?”

  Les was about to answer reassuringly when he stopped to reread a message that had come in overnight. He canceled the platitude he’d been about to utter. “Well, if I’m reading between the lines right, this may be the first shovelful. I just got an email about an evidentiary discrepancy with the Ryan Paine–Kyle Kennedy shoot-out, a few years ago.”

  “Great,” Sammie said, joining him to peer over his shoulder. “Why start with a ground ball?”

  * * *

  “Technically, we’re trespassing,” Colin Guyette said.

  “Technically, I don’t give a rat’s ass,” Willy responded, crouching low between the train tracks.

  “Couple of weeks ago, a local ball team posed in front of the Windsor Station Restaurant for Facebook, from the tracks side instead of the parking lot. The Amtrak police showed up and violated them.”

  “They can violate me all they want,” Willy growled. “They won’t like what happens. Where were these teeth found—exactly?”

  Guyette chose his words carefully. “She brought ’em in, so I don’t know exactly, but I asked her to show me, and she said right here.”

  “And the burned-up thing?”

  Now the Windsor cop was more in his element. He got down beside Willy, opened the bag he’d brought with him containing a charred, book-shaped object with wires sticking out of one end, and held up his smartphone so that he could place his evidence on the track bed to match the photo on the phone.

  “There,” he said. “That’s pretty close.”

  Willy nodded and stood up, looking north. Windsor presented itself to him in three parallel strips from this vantage point: the river to his right; the poor industrial section they were in, with the tracks defining its far edge; and the actual historic town—complete with church spires, old buildings, lofty mansions, and businesses—high on the rise to his left, clearly demarking the land of the haves from that of the have-nots.