Archer Mayor - Occam's razor

Walter paused. “He’s not happy.”

“Well, pacify him. I gotta check my options.”

The line went dead. The tape kept rolling.

After a click, Walter said, “I didn’t hear that.”

“What’re you, stupid? I said kill him. We don’t do that, he takes us all down-everyone. The son of a bitch’s been dumping shit for me for years. He knows places, people, the whole operation.”

“Why not just take care of him, like he asks? He doesn’t look like he’s going to last too long anyhow.”

“That’s just the point. If he knows he’s cooked, and we let him out of the bag, he’ll shoot his mouth off. What’s the problem here? You want to go to jail?”

“No, no. I want assurances.”

The other voice exploded. “You fucking peckerhead. We’re talking about killing a man. You want me to write you a note saying it’s okay, so the cops won’t bust your balls? Give me a fucking break.”

“I’m a three-time loser on parole. They don’t need to prove anything to send me away. My PO gets even a whiff of this, I’m toast.”

“You’re toast if you don’t do it, Walter. I’ll see to that.”

There was a long silence. “I still want assurances.”

The sigh at the other end was clearly audible. The voice, when it came back on, sounded like an indulgent father’s. “Tell you what. I’ll do it with you. That satisfy you?”

“It helps. What do we do about the Mob?”

“What Mob?”

“He’s connected. He told me so. Shit, you know that. You hired him.”

“It’s part-time. They won’t give a fuck. He’s not even Italian. He’s like a contract worker. Who cares what he does on his own time?”

“You want to risk that?”

I expected another outburst, but the other man paused instead.

Almost a minute elapsed before he finally said, “We’ll pin it on somebody else.”

“What? Who?”

“Reynolds. You screwed up the break-in. We’ll use this instead. Find out what Reynolds drives and get hold of a look-alike. We’ll get rid of Resnick somewhere public and pin it on Reynolds-sic the cops and the Mob on him both.” He laughed.

Walter sounded genuinely baffled. “I don’t get it.”

“You moron. Just get the car. I’ll come down and put it together for you. In the meantime, make God-damn sure Resnick doesn’t disappear. Can you do that much? Not fuck up? Or is that pushing you too far?”

“Up yours. I done a lot of shit for you. I don’t need to hear this.”

“Fine. Don’t, then. Just sit on Resnick and I’ll be down.”

The tape went quiet. J.P. fast-forwarded it, listened to more silence, repeated the process, and found the rest of it blank.

Everyone in the room sat back. I realized we’d all been unconsciously leaning forward, as if to hear better.

“Cool,” Willy murmured.

“It’s a smoking gun, all right,” Derby agreed, “once we find out who belongs to the other voice.”

“I can tell you that,” Tony said. “I met him once, at a party for his brother. It’s Danny Mullen.”

We took our time getting an arrest warrant for Danny Mullen. Working with the state police Bureau of Criminal Investigation, we assembled evidence from the outside in, starting with his whereabouts on the night Resnick died and then securing items like phone records, fingerprints, business documents, and anything else we could think of that might link him to the murder. Included in this bundle was a thumbprint that matched one that Willy Kunkle had found on Billy Conyer’s wad of fresh bills and, more ominously, a work boot whose sole impression was a perfect mate to the subdermal footprint that Bernie Short had discovered under Phil Resnick’s skin during autopsy. In addition, forearmed by a comment made on Walter’s audiotape, we pursued and uncovered evidence of an illegal haz mat trucking operation that Danny had been running for almost fifteen years.

By the time we did put the cuffs on Mullen’s wrists, Jack Derby was confident he had a winnable case on multiple levels-and an all-but-guaranteed victory against James Dunn in the primary.

Not that the fate of a lowly SA could compete with the publicity stirred up by Danny’s jailing. He-and his relation to a gubernatorial candidate-dominated every front page in New England, and in many cases beyond.

This was not solely due to their simply being brothers, although that was bad enough as far as Mark Mullen’s political handlers were concerned. Far worse was the revelation by one of Danny’s nervous employees that as we’d been assembling facts against Danny, he’d burned a box of documents labeled with Mark’s name-not a good sign in a man claiming that the sole tie between himself and the speaker was familial.

Unfortunately, there was little we could do about this report after the fact. As far as we could prove, Danny had ordered and participated in the killing of Phil Resnick without the knowledge or complicity of his brother.

The press did not suffer such constraints. To them, Danny’s actions were so obviously linked to his brother’s political ambitions as to make the truth of the connection a foregone conclusion-proof or no proof. As a result, as Primary Day loomed near, Mark Mullen’s previously assured victory-even given his humiliation of Jim Reynolds over the law enforcement bill-began to look weak in the knees. Reynolds, for his part, simply kept to the high ground he’d staked out with his speech following the conference committee. It was a little hard watching him act the martyred saint, but I couldn’t help enjoying the irony of the situation. Reynolds had started his run for governor on the murdered bodies of innocent children and was now regaining momentum on the corpse of a Mob-connected truck driver-all while standing like a hero amid the ruins of a bill that had never stood a chance from the start. As one editorial put it, the man had achieved nothing and was about to ride that fact to the state’s top job.

Reynolds, however, wasn’t my concern. Mark Mullen was.

It was too much to believe that Danny’s bonfire hadn’t involved more than old business papers and embarrassing love letters, as Danny had claimed when confronted. Unfortunately, that point was now moot. The task ahead was to distinguish whether Danny had acted on his brother’s behalf spontaneously or on Mark’s outright bidding. The first would allow Mark to claim face-saving innocence, the second would not. We needed to know for sure where the line was drawn.

And so we dug into Mark Mullen’s life as we’d just finished doing with his brother’s. And almost as soon as we started, we rediscovered a name from the recent past.

I was on the phone with the sheriff of Orleans County, where the Mullens had grown up, asking him what he knew about Mark, when he suggested instead, “You ought to talk with Win Johnston. He came pokin’ around months ago askin’ the same questions. He’s probably way ahead of you-could save you a bunch of time. You know him?”

“Oh, yeah,” I admitted, already looking up Win’s number.

I called him moments later. “Win, it’s Joe. I think we ought to talk.”

He laughed quietly, needing no more of a preamble. “I was wondering how long it would take you. Chelsea Royal in half an hour?”

Gail often claims that I’ve trained my system to survive solely on Dunkin’ Donuts. It’s a joke, of course, made somewhat cruel by the recent closing of the downtown outlet of that gourmet chain-conveniently a stone’s throw from the office. But in fact, it’s Mom’s Meatloaf at the Chelsea Royal that I’d happily mainline well into my dotage, especially if followed by apple pie.

The setting, admittedly, adds greatly to the appeal. The Chelsea Royal, located on the edge of West Brattleboro, almost directly opposite the state police barracks, is as close to a real diner as is available nowadays. The original shiny steel railroad car stands proud and distinct-complete with old neon sign-although adulterated somewhat by the usual modern attachments of an additional dining area, bathrooms, and a kitchen. And it is justifiably popular, offering not just the kinds of food that fill me with joy and make Gail roll her eyes, but more offbeat fare for more sophisticated palates. It was a credit to Win and our friendship that he’d suggested it for a meet.