Archer Mayor - Bellows Falls

MY DESK LAMP LIGHT BARELY REACHED the far corners of my small, glassed-in office, leaving the squad room beyond completely dark. The lighting shrouded the whole place with an uncharacteristic intimacy, enhancing the quiet isolation I enjoyed when working after hours. The phone’s sudden, electronic chirping came as a jarring intrusion.

“Gunther.”

“Lieutenant, this is Marshall Smith. Pierre and I are down at the Retreat. I think we’ve found someone you been wanting to talk to.”

“Who?”

“Jasper Morgan. One of the regulars started smashing chairs at a substance abuse meeting in the cafeteria, so they called us. When we were sorting things out, I saw Morgan trying to look invisible along the back wall.”

“He still there?” I asked.

“They all are. We figured the best way not to spook him was to keep everybody put. Pierre’s stalling for time right now-pretending to figure out who did what.”

“I’ll be right there.”

I left the ancient brick building housing the police department and headed for the Retreat in my car, letting the warm summer air flush out the stale interior. Jasper Morgan was a minor drug dealer, which, given Vermont’s overall activity in that field, made him pretty small fry. In addition, he wasn’t currently on parole, had no warrants outstanding, and had been keeping a discreet profile. But I’d heard rumors his business had picked up lately, and was wondering why. In a town the size of Brattleboro, with some twelve thousand residents, we could still afford to focus on the vagaries of a single crook, and, given the climbing crime statistics in Massachusetts, a mere ten miles south of us, a little mild paranoia seemed like worthwhile health insurance. If Morgan’s recent prosperity was due to some change in either supply or demand, I wanted to know about it.

Not that a single conversation would be all that enlightening. Morgan was experienced enough to know who-between us and his drug business colleagues-was the bigger threat to his health. But a chat would at least remind him of our continuing interest.

The Brattleboro Retreat is one of the town’s largest employers, and with some sixteen hundred acres, its largest landowner. A psychiatric hospital founded two years before Davy Crockett died at the Alamo, it began as an insane asylum, financed by a woman who took exception to a local lawyer being cured of his lunacy with an ice water immersion followed by a fatal dose of opium.

Its campus-like facility occupies a broad, mid-level plain on Brattleboro’s northern edge, below the town’s tree-shaded common, and above a sweeping, shallow backwater marking the confluence of the West and Connecticut rivers, called the Retreat Meadows from the days before a downstream dam turned pastureland into a lake. The Meadows form a natural magnet for the general population, luring fishermen and boaters in the summer, and providing ice fishing and skating when it turns colder. It forms a perfect sylvan backdrop to the Retreat’s impressive sprawl of massive brick buildings and carefully tended trees, all of which make the place look more like a small elite college than a place for the mentally disturbed.

I left the traffic circle that cut across the front of the commons, and turned right down Linden Street, which swept down off the hill to the Retreat’s entrance gate, and from which I had a brief overview of the institution’s layout, attractively lit by regularly spaced iron lampposts and discreetly hidden floodlights.

There was also a police car outside the cafeteria entrance, about midway down a long string of connected buildings.

I parked behind the cruiser, walked up to its driver’s window, and leaned in to kill the emergency lights. I saw no need to rile the tenants unnecessarily, especially just below its only high-security floor.

Marshall Smith met me at the cafeteria’s double doors.

Over his shoulder was a large, well-lit room, in the center of which were several overturned chairs and tables, a scattering of splintered wood littering the floor, and a man lying face down with his hands cuffed behind his back. Far to the rear of the room, a disparate group of silent men and women stood facing us, looking like a late afternoon crowd waiting for a bus. Pierre Lavoie was circulating among them, pad in hand, taking down names and statements.

“Where’re the staffers?” I asked Smith, noticing their absence.

“It’s an anonymous meeting. Staff isn’t allowed inside ’cause it’s open to outsiders and residents both. The residents are escorted in, and then the staff waits outside till they’re all done.”

Smith led me farther inside, so I could have a full view of the distant group. “I had Pierre begin to the far left to keep things slow. Morgan’s over to the right.”

With that, pure human instinct overrode all his careful planning. He stared directly at Jasper Morgan and began raising his hand to point. Simultaneously, between Morgan and where Lavoie was collecting statements, a door cracked open to reveal the inquiring face of one of the staffers outside.

The combination was all Morgan needed. He bolted for the door, wrenched it open, hip-checked the man beyond, and vanished from view.

“Oh, Christ,” Marshall muttered, realizing his mistake. “Pierre. Get him,” he shouted.

But Lavoie was already halfway through the door himself.

I pointed at the man handcuffed on the floor. “Stay with him and keep this room secure,” I told Smith, breaking into a run. “And call for backup.” Nearing the door, I saw the crowd beginning to shift indecisively, some backing away, others leaning toward the exit. “Nobody leave the room,” I shouted, and elbowed my way through them, slamming the door behind me.

Facing me was a bright, windowless, cement-walled corridor, its walls decorated with pictures and trophy cases, its ceiling overrun with pipes. The Retreat being built on a slight incline, the first-floor cafeteria connected directly to the adjoining building’s basement. The corridor was empty, except for the fading echoes of rapid footfalls upon the linoleum floor.

I ran to the first corner, rounded it at full tilt, and stumbled over Pierre Lavoie, who was rolling helplessly on the ground, holding his bleeding face with both hands.

“Shit,” I said, instinctively glancing at his holster. It was empty.

I grabbed the radio from his belt. “M-80 from 0–2. I have an officer down and an armed suspect on the loose inside the Retreat. Put out a mutual aid request for manpower, round up everyone of our people you can locate, and activate the Tac Team. This is only about thirty seconds old, so concentrate on locking up the Retreat grounds as tightly as possible. Also close off both ends of Linden Street and position people on the Putney Road in case he gets out and tries to reach it cross-country. Who’s the on-call detective?”

“Martens,” came the brisk reply.

“Have her lead the Tac Team-full combat gear. Put Klesczewski in charge of organizing the perimeter. And a couple of ambulances here- now .”

“10-4.”

I crouched near Lavoie’s head. “How’re you doing?”

His voice was muffled. “I think he broke my nose. Jesus, it hurts like hell.”

“Are you breathing all right? Any other injuries?”

“No. I mean, yeah, I’m breathing fine. I’m okay ’cept for the nose. He was waiting when I came around the corner. Must’ve been holding a club or something.”

I glanced around and saw a heavy book lying at some distance on the floor. “He got your gun,” I said.

“Oh, Christ.”

I patted his shoulder and stood up. “You stay put. I’m going to reconnoiter a bit.”