Archer Mayor - Tucker Peak

In the end, it had been neither easier nor harder than an old-fashioned marriage. It had merely evolved into something rich and rewarding enough to keep us coming back for more.

So, I kept at my project for the rest of the weekend, until by Sunday night I fitted a reasonably antiqued seat between the old and slightly battered legs, arms, and back of a hundred-year-old wooden chair, knowing that the effort I’d put into it would count for more with Gail than just good craftsmanship.

It was with similar anticipation that I returned to the office on Monday morning to see what the computers had coughed up concerning William Manning’s missing items. For me, an investigation, no matter how apparently trivial, shared many of the elements of a woodworking project. They both demanded thoughtfulness, patience, and attention to detail, and both promised to disappoint if handled carelessly. But neither one was entirely successful if only followed by the numbers. Strong elements of intuition and creativity always featured in the end result.

It was also true, however, that encouraging momentum was sometimes slow to build. When I checked for reports from our queries of two days ago, I found nothing.

Or, as Willy put it more succinctly, “We got shit. No hits on the fingerprints, the MO, the sheriff’s neighborhood canvass, nothing from the caretaker, who I interviewed yesterday, and no news on any of our rich boy’s toys. I still think he did it himself for the insurance.”

Sammie Martens was standing by a small counter that held a coffeemaker and a few cups. Small, slight, and as tough as sinew, Sammie was ex-military like Willy and me, but-perhaps because she was barely in her thirties-she still maintained the spit and polish both of us had long since dropped. She was also intense, ambitious, and extremely loyal, a combination that occasionally got uncomfortably tangled up in itself and dropped her into dark moods of self-doubt and frustration. She and Willy were the only erstwhile Brattleboro police officers to accompany me in the shift to VBI, a move that had effectively robbed the town’s detective bureau of three-fifths of its manpower. We’d been working as a team for over ten years, as a result, and had become more like family members than mere colleagues.

“You know most of that stuff won’t be coming in for days,” she told him. “You’re just pissed off because you don’t like the guy and you think the case is beneath you, but you still can’t resist being interested in it.”

Willy looked at her balefully. “Oh, right. Like I’m staying up late at night sweating this out.”

“You drove me all the way back to Tucker Peak to talk to the caretaker on a Sunday,” she said, smiling and taking her first sip of coffee. “The sheriff’d already done that.”

Willy scowled.

“Did you learn anything new?” I asked, surprised and curious.

But feeling cornered by now, he didn’t take it well. “Right-you, too. Don’t be bashful. Pile it on. You saying we shouldn’t double-check the other guy’s work?”

Sammie was walking slowly across to her desk so she wouldn’t spill her drink. “Willy, give us a break. It’s too early for opera.”

He didn’t respond, but I noticed him hiding a smile as he pretended to dig around in a lower drawer. Willy and Sammie, after years of bickering while working for me downstairs, had recently and suddenly become a romantic item, just prior to joining VBI. It was very low-key. I was one of the few who even knew of it, and it had seemed at the time as likely as a bullfrog courting a bird. But it appeared to be working. Sammie’s nearly obsessive, jagged, driven style had been softened, and the angry fire that raged perpetually inside Willy was running just a few degrees cooler.

The office door opened with a bang, and a tall, skinny man with a tousled shock of blond hair entered, saying something pleasantly suggestive over his shoulder to Judy, our secretary, who sat alone in the small waiting area between our office and the hallway.

Lester Spinney was the final member of the “Southeast” team, VBI being divided into four cardinal divisions around the state, with the fifth residing at the Department of Public Safety headquarters in centralized Waterbury. Lester and I had known each other since we’d worked together on a homicide in the state’s isolated Northeast Kingdom region a decade earlier. He’d been a detective with the state police’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation then, and (as far as I was concerned) had now become the perfect poster boy of how and why VBI benefited all capable, ambitious Vermont cops, regardless of where they’d started out.

One paradoxical aspect of the Vermont State Police-or VSP in acronym-happy cop-talk-was that while it was Vermont’s premier law enforcement agency, in terms of size, budget, and quality, it was also a traditionally structured organizational pyramid. The more capable and upwardly mobile an officer became, the less likely it was he or she would be given an open slot in a timely manner. Highly deserving, experienced people were finding themselves either standing in line, praying for providence, or looking for jobs elsewhere.

Spinney had opted for an alternate route, in fact declining a VSP promotion that would have anchored him to a desk in order to join the attorney general’s office and keep working investigations. The only downside was that he’d exchanged being a part of a large, companionable organization of fellow cops for working with a bunch of lawyers. Educational perhaps, but also socially isolating-and he was a famously sociable person.

Enter VBI.

“Hello, boys and girls,” he said, trying to simultaneously shuck his coat and not drop an oversize box of Dunkin’ Donuts. “I thought I’d take the edge off a Monday by putting your minds on your stomachs.”

“It’ll take more’n that,” Willy grumbled.

Spinney smiled broadly and reached into the box. “Just what I thought, Grumpy, which is why I got you an extra big cinnamon roll.” He laid it with a flourish on Kunkle’s desk, complete with a napkin. Willy rolled his eyes but was eating Lester’s offering within five minutes. The rest of us didn’t bother being coy.

“How’s your caseload, Lester?” I asked with my mouth full, having already quizzed the other two on their work.

He’d replaced Sammie at the coffee machine and was pouring himself a cup. “The homicide in Springfield looks pretty straightforward, just lining everything up for the prosecution. The arson at that farm in Rockingham might take a bit more. It’s still a toss-up between the son and the neighbor. I’m leaning toward the neighbor. Why? Got something going?”

“Yeah,” Willy said sarcastically. “Better put all that on hold. We’re in the big leagues now.”

“Burglary at Tucker Peak,” I answered. “About fifty grand worth of stuff. We got it from Snuffy Dawson because of a twenty-thousand dollar watch and the fact that he’s already got his hands full with a bunch of protesters.”

Lester whistled and, unlike Willy, didn’t question our involvement. Instead, he came up with an immediate suggestion. “You try the Internet auction houses yet?”

Sammie looked up from her paperwork. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. Next best thing to a pawn shop, and with a much wider clientele. If I ended up with something like that, that’s how I’d move it.”

He crossed over to one of the several computers we had around the room. “Want me to try?”

To pay Willy his due, he was the first one by Lester’s side as he sat down before the monitor. Willy read the description of the watch aloud from the case file.

Spinney started with eBay and began his search, talking as he did so. “There’re a bunch of these sites nowadays-dime a dozen-and we may be jumping the gun a little, but it can’t hurt.”