Archer Mayor - Scent of Evil

“Well, I got something, too. It’s not much, but I figured you ought to take a look.” I thought back to the way DeFlorio had delivered his report; had it been Klesczewski, he would have escorted me to meet the witness and forced me to interview him all over again, just so nothing was left out. It had never surprised me the two men generally kept their distance from one another.

I followed Klesczewski toward Ed’s Diner and the concrete barricade the road crew had set up weeks ago, which we were now using as a police line to keep out the public. My heart sank a little as we drew near, for standing on the other side of the listless yellow police line we’d strung across the road was the Brattleboro Reformer ’s courts-’n’-cops reporter, Stanley Katz.

My relationship with Katz was emblematic of all that was wrong between the press and the police. We didn’t like each other, didn’t trust each other, and each of us was generally convinced the world would be a better place without the other. Stanley couldn’t hear the time of day from me without smelling a cover-up, and I couldn’t read beyond his byline on an article without feeling that he’d hyped up the gore and screwed up the facts. The irony was that we knew neither perception was accurate, but our reactions were chemical not rational, a fact to which we’d finally become resigned.

Katz’s narrow face broke into a wide grin at our approach. “Who belongs to the hand, Lieutenant?”

“I don’t know, Stanley,” I said, as I squeezed between two of the concrete barricades and under the rope. Klesczewski, who couldn’t tolerate even speaking to Katz, was heading around the corner of Ed’s and down across the sloping Elm Street bridge.

I saw WBRT news reporter Ted McDonald drive up, park haphazardly near the curb, and struggle to get his massive bulk and tape recorder out of the radio station’s undersized car in one failed fluid movement. His eyes focused on me like a dog’s on dinner.

“Joe,” he shouted cheerfully.

I waved to him and heard Katz’s quiet groan. That gave me a gentle pang of pleasure. McDonald was a good old boy, born and raised in Brattleboro, as faithful to the town and its denizens as he was to the flag, and a throwback to the less complicated days I’d been thinking of mere moments ago. In his hourly four-minute news spots, he pretty much reported what he saw and what we told him, with no hype and no prejudicial inflections, which to me was eminently acceptable. Katz had once told me he thought McDonald was a dim-witted, stoolie woodchuck, the last part of which was a derogatory name given local rural folk. Katz was from Connecticut, which we woodchucks saw as a condemnation speaking for itself.

I waited for Ted to join us, enjoying Katz’s heightening but resigned disgust.

McDonald’s face was beet red and dripping with sweat. He began fumbling with his tape recorder but stopped when I shook my head. “Sorry, Ted, it’s still too early. We’ve found a body behind the retaining wall, but we haven’t even finished digging it up. We have no who, when, how, or why to give you.”

Katz gave a condescending smile to the older reporter. “It’s obviously a murder-they just haven’t determined the cause.”

McDonald’s face brightened, but I smiled and shook my head. “Don’t let him jerk you around. Nobody’s said it was a murder-right now, it’s an unexplained death.”

Katz fell in beside me as I set off to rejoin Klesczewski. “But he was murdered, right?” Ted lumbered silently behind, noisily pushing buttons on his machine.

“We don’t know that.”

“You think he died of natural causes and buried himself? Very considerate.”

“It’s early on, Stanley. Once we’ve exhumed the body and the medical examiner has had a chance to take a look, we or the state’s attorney’s office will issue a statement.”

“How was he killed?” Ted asked.

“We’ve got a hand sticking out of the dirt. We’d like to see the rest of the body first.”

“So he was killed.” Katz smiled.

“He’s dead-that’s all we know. We don’t know who he is, we don’t know how he died, and we don’t know if he was killed. We don’t know anything at the moment.”

“So what are you doing now?”

We were halfway across the bridge, which sloped steeply from Canal to the Whetstone Brook’s low north bank. Below us, Klesczewski had already jumped the guardrail at the far end of the bridge and was sidestepping down to the edge of the river. I let out a sigh. The sun and the conversation were giving me a headache. “I’m trying to patiently explain that I have nothing to say.”

Katz tried a more benign approach. “How about off the record? What does the guy look like? What did Dunn have to say?”

“Nothing. I’m not ducking you, guys. I just don’t have anything.”

“How about the age of the body? I mean, is it half rotted or does it look fresh?”

I lifted one leg over the guardrail in order to join Klesczewski. “I got to go to work. Talk to you later.”

Ted, who by now had gotten the message and was undoing all his button pushing, muttered, “Thanks, Joe.”

Katz made to follow me.

I placed my hand gently against his chest. “Where’re you going, Stanley?”

I half expected some small lecture on the rights of a free press, but even Katz had grown beyond that. Besides, we both knew the unwritten rules of the game, and despite our sparring we observed them. He gave me an infectious grin. “Thought I’d go fishing?”

I shook my head, unable to suppress a smile myself. “Nice try.”

I left him on the street and climbed down the bank to where Klesczewski was moodily staring at the water, waiting. “So-what have you got?”

“It’s over here.” He led the way under the bridge, keeping to the rocks to avoid disturbing the damp soil.

Once in the shade, I paused and blinked to get used to the low light. It was suddenly delightfully cool, with the sound of water splashing off the concrete bridge that arched overhead, and the shadows flickering with reflected spots of sunlight. There was a slight but permeating odor of rotting vegetation.

“Nice place.”

Klesczewski pointed to the narrow wedge where the bank met the underside of the bridge, some six feet up from the water’s edge. “You’re not the only one who thinks so.”

Running parallel to the brook, a small shelf had been scooped out of the embankment, and on it was a two-inch-thick mattress of old newspapers. Scattered around the shelf was an assortment of everyday trash-bottles, food wrappers, odd scraps of paper, most of it fairly fresh.

“The Dew Drop Inn, complete with air-conditioning-and recently occupied.”

Klesczewski nodded. “That’s not all.” He retraced our steps to the opening, so we were half in the shade and half back in the glare. He pointed again to the ground.

I squatted down, keeping my hands on my knees. Resting on top of the moist, pungent earth was an unusually fat, chewed-up wad of gum, still pink and clean.

“What do you think?” I asked.

Klesczewski looked vaguely uncomfortable. He hadn’t led me all the way down here to hear me ask that. But he had led me, so I knew he’d reached some conclusions.

“Somebody’s living here, or at least they were, up to a few hours ago. Maybe they saw something.”

I looked again at the gum, poking at it with a pen I’d removed from my pocket. It was dry, but not rock hard, and its cleanliness attested to its having been spat out within the last half day. “We can’t afford a twenty-four-hour watch on this place, but tell Patrol to keep an eye peeled for anybody coming back here in the next few days. I’d like to talk to the gum-chewer.”